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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


d/' 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/cloudsilverOOIucaiala 


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CLOUD  AND  SILVER 

E  .        V.       LUCAS 


By     E.    V.    LUCAS 

More  "Wanderings  in  London 

Cloud  and  Silver 

The  Vermilion  Box 

The  Hausfrau  Rampant 

Landmarks 

Listener's  Lure 

Mr.  Ingleside 

Over  Bemerton's 

Loiterer's  Harvest 

One  Day  and  Another 

Fireside  and  Sunshine 

Character  and  Comedy 

Old  Lamps  for  New 

The  Hambledon  Men 

The  Open  Road 

The  Friendly  Town 

Her  Infinite  Variety — 

Good  Company — 

The  Gentlest  Art 

The  Second  Post 

A  Little  of  Everything 

Harvest  Home 

Variety  Lane 

The  Best  of  Lamb 

The  Life  of  Charles  Lamb 

A  Swan  and  Her  Friends 

A  Wanderer  in  Venice 

A  Wanderer  in  Paris 

A  Wanderer  in  London 

A  Wanderer  in  Holland 

A  Wanderer  in  Florence 

Highways  and  Byways  in  Sussex 

Anne's  Terrible  Good  Nature 

The  Slowcoach 

and 
The  Pocket  Edition  of  the  Works  of 

Charles  Lamb:  I.  Miscellaneous  Prose; 

ii.  Elia;     ni.    Children's    Books;    rv. 

Poems  and  Plays;  v.  and  vi.  Letters. 


CLOUD  and  SILVER 


BY 

E.  V.  LUCAS 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


LtJfcc 


CONTENTS 


ON  BELLONA'S  HEM— 

PAGE 

Allies  to  the  End     .... 

h        .       11 

My   Fihst   Battle-field       .         ..;        > 

16 

The  Marne  after  the  Battle  .: 

..       23 

Wayside  Notes — 

I.    Gratitude                      > 

m        •       42 

II.   The  Mistake      .         .        •••        i. 

43 

III.    Repentance         ...:.: 

.       46 

Laughter  in  the  Trenches 

.       49 

The  Sinking  of  the  U  29  . 

55 

The  Real  Hero  of  the  War     . 

i.       59 

VARIOUS  ESSAYS— 

Of   Bareheadedness    . 
Of  Silver  Paper 
Of  Being  Somebody  Else    . 
Of  Persons  that  we  Envy 
Of  Good  Ale 


62 
66 
70 
75 
79 


303868 


Contents 

VARIOUS  ESSAYS— continued  vaqj. 

Of  the  Best  Stories 84 

Of  Monocles       .         .  :.         .90 

Of  Slang — English  and  American  ...  94 
Of  a  Bonzer  Australian  Poet  ....  101 
Of  the  Crummles  Code       .         .         .         .         .110 

Of  Accuracy .      114 

Of  Deception      .......     119 

Of  Plans  for  one  more  Spring  ....     124 

"R.C."  ........     129 

The  Two  Ladies 134 


ONCE  UPON  A  TIME— 

I.    The  Two  Perfumes 

141 

II.   The  Dog  Violets  . 

143 

III.   The  Devout  Lover 

144 

IV.    Wireless 

146 

V.   The  Vaseful 

149 

VI.    Ups  and  Downs    . 

151 

VII.    The   Alien    . 

.      154 

VIII.    Breathing  Space  . 

.      157 

IX.    Responsibility 

.      158 

X.   Man's  Limitations 

.      100 

vi 

Contents 


ONCE  UPON  A  TIME— continued 


PAGE 

XI. 

"East,  West,  Home's  Best" 

162 

XII. 

Waste    .... 

164 

XIII. 

Nature 

166 

XIV. 

The  Rule 

166 

XV. 

The  Uses  of  Criticism:  . 

167 

XVI. 

JOINTS  IN  THE  ARMOUR   . 

168 

XVII. 

The  Resolute  Spirit     . 

170 

XVIII. 

In  Extremis 

174 

XIX. 

Progress         . 

176 

XX. 

Moses     .         .         .        t.;        ;.. 

176 

IN  A  NEW  MEDIUM— 
The  Old  Countrt;  or.  Writ  in  Wax 


180 


vii 


CLOUD  AND  SILVER 


CLOUD  AND  SILVER 


ON  BELLONA'S  HEM 

ALLIES   TO   THE   END 

(December  191£) 

WE  were  sitting  in  a  little  restaurant  in  the 
Gay  City — which  is  not  a  gay  city  any 
more,  but  a  city  of  dejection,  a  city  that  knows 
there  is  a  war  going  on  and  not  so  long  since 
could  hear  the  guns.  There  are,  however,  corners 
where,  for  the  moment,  contentment  or,  at  any 
rate,  an  interlude  of  mirth,  is  possible,  and  this 
little  restaurant  is  one  of  them.  Well,  we  were 
sitting  there  waiting  for  coffee,  the  room  (for  it 
was  late)  now  empty  save  for  the  table  behind 
me,  where  two  elderly  French  bourgeois  and  a 
middle-aged  woman  were  seated,  when  suddenly 
the  occupant  of  the  chair  which  backed  into  mine 
and  had  been  backing  into  it  so  often  during  the 
evening  that  I  had  punctuated  my  eating  with 
comments  on  other  people's  clumsy  bulkiness — 
suddenly,  as  I  say,  this  occupant,  turning  com- 
pletely round,  forced  his  face  against  mine  and, 
cigarette  in  hand,  asked  me  for  a  light.  I  could 
see  nothing  but  face — a  waste  of  plump  ruddy 
11 


Cloud  and  Silver 

face  set  deep  between  vast  shoulders,  a  face 
garnished  with  grey  beard  and  moustache,  and 
sparkling  moist  eyes  behind  highly  magnifying 
spectacles.  Very  few  teeth  and  no  hair.  But 
the  countenance  as  a  whole  radiated  benignancy 
and  enthusiasm;  and  one  thing,  at  any  rate,  was 
clear,  and  that  was  that  none  of  my  resentment 
as  to  the  restlessness  of  the  chair  had  been 
telepathed. 

Would  I  do  him  the  honour  of  giving  him  a 
light?  he  asked,  the  face  so  close  to  mine  that 
we  were  practically  touching.  I  reached  out  for 
a  match.  Oh  no,  he  said,  not  at  all;  he  desired 
the  privilege  of  taking  the  light  from  my  cigarette, 
because    I    was    an    Englishman    and    it    was    an 

honour  to  meet  me,  and — and "Vive  l'Angle- 

terre !"  This  was  all  very  strange  and  disturbing 
to  me;  but  we  live  in  stirring  times,  and  nothing 
ever  will  be  the  same  again.  So  I  gave  him  the 
light  quite  calmly,  not  forgetting  to  say,  "Vive 
la  France!"  as  I  did  so;  whereupon  he  grasped 
my  hand  and  thanked  me  fervently  for  the 
presence  of  the  English  army  in  his  country, 
the  credit  for  which  I  endeavoured  fruitlessly 
to  disclaim,  and  then  all  the  members  of  each 
party  stood  up,  bowed  to  each  other  severally 
and  collectively,  and  resumed  our  own  lives 
again. 

But  the  incident  had  been  so  unexpected  that 

I,  at  any  rate,  could  not  be   quite  normal  just 

yet,  for  I  could  not  understand  why,  out  of  four 

of   us,   all   English,   and   one   a   member    of   the 

(12) 


Allies  to  the  End 

other  sex,  so  magnetic  to  Frenchmen,  I  should 
have  been  selected  either  as  the  most  typical 
or  the  most  likely  to  be  cordial — I  who  only 
a  week  or  so  ago  was  told  reflectively  by  a 
student  of  men,  gazing  steadfastly  upon  me, 
that  my  destiny  must  be  to  be  more  amused 
by  other  people  than  to  amuse  them.  Especially, 
too,  as  earlier  in  the  evening  there  had  been 
two  of  our  soldiers — real  men — in  khaki  in  the 
room.  Yet  there  it  was:  I,  a  dreary  civilian, 
had  been  carefully  selected  as  the  truest  repre- 
sentative of  Angleterre  and  all  its  bravery  and 
chivalry,  even  to  the  risk  of  dislocation  of  the 
perilously  short  neck  of  the  speaker. 

It  was  therefore  my  turn  to  behave,  and  I 
whispered  to  the  waiter  to  fill  three  more  glasses 
with  his  excellent  Fine  de  la  maison  (not  the 
least  remarkable  in  Paris)  and  place  them  on 
the  next  table,  with  our  compliments.  This  he 
did,  and  the  explosion  of  courtesy  and  felicita- 
tions that  followed  was  terrific.  It  flung  us  all 
to  our  feet,  bowing  and  smiling.  We  clinked 
glasses,  each  of  us  clinking  six  others;  we  said 
"Vive  la  France!"  and  "Vive  l'Angleterre."  We 
tried  to  assume  expressions  consonant  with  the 
finest  types  of  our  respective  nations.  I  felt 
everything  that  was  noblest  in  the  British  char- 
acter rushing  to  my  cheeks;  everything  that  was 
most  gallant  and  spirited  in  the  French  tempera- 
ment suffused  the  face  of  my  new  friend,  until 
I  saw  nothing  for  him  but  instant  apoplexy. 
Meanwhile  he  grasped  my  hand  in  his,  which  was 

(13) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

very  puffy  and  warm,  and  again  thanked  me 
personally  for  all  that  "ces  braves  Anglais"  had 
done  to  save   Paris  and  la  belle   France. 

Down  we  all  sat  again,  and  I  whispered  to 
our  party  that  perhaps  this  was  enough  and 
we  had  better  creep  away.  But  there  was  more 
in  store.  Before  the  bill  could  be  made  out — 
never  a  very  swift  matter  at  this  house — I  caught 
sight  of  a  portent  and  knew  the  worst.  I  saw 
a  waiter  entering  the  room  with  a  tray  on  which 
was  a  bottle  of  champagne  and  seven  glasses. 
My  heart  sank,  for  if  there  is  one  thing  I  cannot 
do,  it  is  to  drink  the  sweet  champagne  so  dear 
to  the  French  bourgeois  palate.  And  after  the 
old  fine,  not  before  it!  To  the  French  mind 
these  irregularities  are  nothing;  but  to  me, 
to  us.  .  .  . 

There  however  it  was,  and,  in  a  moment,  the 
genial  enthusiast  was  again  on  his  feet.  Would 
we  not  join  them,  he  asked,  in  drinking  a  glass 
of  champagne  to  the  good  health  and  success 
of  the  Allies?  Of  course  we  would.  Instantly 
we  were  all  standing  again,  all  clinking  glasses 
again,  all  again  crying  "Vive  la  France!"  "Vive 
l'Angleterre !"  to  which  we  added,  "A  bas  les 
Boches!"  all  shaking  hands  and  looking  our  best, 
exactly  as  before.  But  this  time  there  was  no 
following  national  segregation,  but  we  sat  down 
in  three  animated  groups  and  talked  as  though 
a  ban  against  social  intercourse  in  operation  for 
years  had  suddenly  been  lifted.  The  room 
buzzed.  We  were  introduced  one  by  one  to 
(14) 


Allies  to  the  End 

Madame,  who  not  only  was  my  friend's  wife, 
but,  he  told  us  proudly,  helped  in  his  business, 
whatever  that  might  be;  and  Madame,  on  closer 
inspection,  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  capable 
but  somewhat  hard  French  women  of  her  class, 
with  a  suggestion  somewhere  about  the  mouth  that 
she  had  doubts  as  to  whether  the  champagne  had 
been  quite  a  necessary  expense — whether  things 
had  not  gone  well  enough  without  it,  and  my  con- 
tribution of  fine  were  the  fitting  conclusion.  Still, 
she  made  a  brave  show  at  cordiality.  Then  we 
were  introduced  to  the  other  gentleman,  Madame's 
cousin,  who,  we  were  told  with  pride,  had  a  son 
at  the  Front;  on  hearing  which,  we  shook  hands 
with  him  again,  and  then  gradually  set  about 
the  task  of  disentanglement,  and  at  last  got  into 
our  coats  and  made  our  adieux. 

When  I  had  shaken  his  feather-bed  hand  for 
the  last  time  my  new  friend  gave  me  his  card. 
It  lies  before  me  as  I  write,  and  I  do  not  mean  to 
part  with  it: 


BAPTISTE  GRIMAUD 

Delegue  Cantonal 

9a  Place  Gambetta 
Pompes  Funkbres 


Well,  if  ever  I  come  to  die  in  Paris  I  know  who 
shall  bury  me.  I  would  not  let  any  one  else  do  it 
for  the  world.  Warm  hearts  are  not  so  common 
as  all  that ! 

(15) 


MY   FIRST  BATTLE-FIELD 

(December  1911^) 

THERE  was  a  battle-field,  I  was  told,  with  a 
ruined  village  near  it,  at  Meaux,  about  thirty 
miles  from  Paris,  and  I  decided  to  make  every 
effort  to  see  it.  The  preliminaries,  they  said, 
would  be  difficult,  but  only  patience  was  needed — 
patience  and  one's  papers  all  in  order.  It  would 
be  necessary  to  go  to  the  War  Bureau,  beside  the 
Invalides. 

I  went  one  afternoon  to  the  War  Bureau  beside 
the  Invalides.  I  rang  the  bell,  and  a  smiling 
French  soldier  opened  the  door.  Within  were  long 
passages  and  other  smiling  French  soldiers  in  little 
knots  guarding  the  approaches,  all  very  bureau- 
cratic. The  head  of  the  first  knot  referred  me  to 
the  second  knot;  the  head  of  the  second  referred 
me  to  a  third.  The  head  of  this  knot,  which 
guarded  the  approach  to  the  particular  military 
mandarin  whom  I  needed  or  thought  I  needed, 
smiled  more  than  any  of  them,  and,  having  heard 
my  story,  said  that  that  was  certainly  the  place  to 
obtain  leave.  But  it  was  unwise  and  even  impos- 
sible to  go  by  any  other  way  than  road,  as  the 
railway  was  needed  for  soldiers  and  munitions  of 
war,  and  therefore  I  must  bring  my  chauffeur 
(16) 


My  First  Battle-Field 

with  me,  and  his  papers  too  would  need  to  be  in 
order. 

My  chauffeur  ?  I  possessed  no  such  thing.  Nec- 
essary then  to  provide  myself  with  a  chauffeur  at 
once.  Out  I  went  in  a  fusillade  of  courtesies  and 
sought  a  chauffeur.  After  countless  rebuffs  I 
hailed  a  taxi,  driven  by  a  vast  grey  hearthrug,  and 
told  him  my  difficulties,  and  he  at  once  offered  to 
drive  me  anywhere  and  made  no  bones  about  the 
distance  whatever.  So  it  was  arranged  that  he 
should  come  for  me  on  the  morrow — say  Tuesday, 
at  a  quarter  to  eleven,  and  we  would  then  get 
through  the  preliminaries,  lunch  comfortably  by 
noon  and  be  off  and  away.  So  do  hearthrugs  talk 
with  foreigners — light-heartedly  and  confident.  But 
Mars  disposes.  For  when  we  reached  the  Bureau 
at  a  minute  after  eleven  the  next  morning  the 
smiling  janitor  told  us  we  were  too  late.  Too 
late  at  eleven?  Yes,  the  office  in  question  was 
closed  between  eleven  and  two;  we  must  return 
at  two.  "But  the  day  will  be  over,"  I  said; 
"the  light  will  have  gone.  Another  day 
wasted !" 

Nothing  on  earth  can  crystallise  and  solidify  so 
swiftly  and  implacably  as  the  French  official  face. 
At  these  words  his  smile  vanished  in  a  second. 
He  was  not  angry  or  threatening — merely  granite. 
Those  were  the  rules,  and  how  could  any  one 
question  them?  At  two,  he  repeated;  and  again 
I  left  the  building,  this  time  not  bowing  quite  so 
effusively,  but  suppressing  a  thousand  criticisms 

(17) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

which  might  havd  been  spoken  were  the  French 
not  our  allies. 

Three  hours  to  kill  in  a  city  where  everything 
was  shut.  No  Louvre,  no  Carnavalet.  However, 
the  time  went,  chiefly  over  lunch,  and  at  two  we 
were  there  again,  the  hearthrug  and  I,  and  were 
shown  into  a  waiting-room  where  far  too  many 
other  persons  had  already  assembled.  To  me  this 
congestion  seemed  deplorable;  but  the  hearthrug 
merely  grinned.  It  was  a  new  experience  to  him 
— and  his  metre  was  registering  all  the  time.  We 
waited,  I  suppose,  forty  minutes,  and  then  came 
our  turn,  and  we  were  led  to  a  little  room  where 
sat  a  typical  French  officer  at  a  table,  white  mous- 
tached  and  in  uniform  with  blue  and  red  about  it. 
I  bowed,  he  bowed,  the  hearthrug  grovelled.  I 
explained  my  need,  and  he  replied  instantly  that  I 
had  come  to  the  wrong  place;  the  right  place  was 
the  Conciergerie. 

Another  rebuff!  In  England  I  might  have  in- 
formed him  that  it  was  one  of  his  own  idiotic 
men  who  had  told  me  otherwise,  but  of  what  use 
would  that  be  in  France?  In  France  a  thing  is  or 
is  not,  and  there  is  no  getting  round  it  if  it  is  not. 
French  officials  are  portcullises,  and  they  drop  as 
suddenly  and  as  effectively.  Knowing  this,  so  far 
from  showing  resentment  or  irritation,  I  bowed 
and  made  my  thanks  as  though  I  had  come  for 
no  other  purpose  than  a  dose  of  expensive  frus- 
tration; and  again  we  left  the  Bureau. 

I  re-entered  the  taxi,  which,  judging  by  the 
metre,  I  should  shortly  have  completely  paid  for, 
(18) 


My  First  Battle-Field 

and  we  hurtled  away  (for  the  hearthrug  was  a 
demon  driver)  to  Paris's  Scotland  Yard.  Here 
were  more  passages,  more  little  rooms,  more  in- 
flexible officials.  I  had  bowed  to  half  a  dozen  and 
explained  my  errand  before  at  last  the  right  one 
was  reached,  and  him  the  hearthrug  grovelled  to 
again  and  called  "Mon  Colonel."  He  sat  at  a 
table  in  a  little  room,  and  beside  him,  all  on  the 
same  side  of  the  table,  sat  three  civilians.  On 
the  wall  behind  was  a  map  of  France.  What 
they  did  all  day,  I  wondered,  and  how  much  they 
were  paid  for  it;  for  we  were  the  only  clients, 
and  the  suggestion  of  the  place  was  one  of  anec- 
dotage  and  persiflage  rather  than  toil.  They  acted 
with  the  utmost  unanimity.  First  "Mon  Colonel" 
scrutinised  my  passport,  and  then  the  others,  in 
turn,  scrutinised  it.  What  did  I  want  to  go  to 
Meaux  for?  I  replied  that  my  motive  was  pure 
curiosity.  Did  I  know  it  was  a  very  dull  town? 
I  wanted  to  see  the  battle-field.  That  would  be 
triste.  Yes,  I  knew,  but  I  was  interested.  "Mon 
Colonel"  shrugged  and  wrote  on  a  piece  of  paper 
and  passed  the  paper  to  the  first  civilian,  who 
wrote  something  else  and  passed  it  on,  and  finally 
the  last  one  getting  it,  discovered  a  mistake  in  the 
second  civilian's  writing,  and  the  mistake  had  to  be 
initialled  by  all  four,  each  making  great  play  with 
one  of  those  hand  blotters  without  which  French 
official  life  would  be  a  blank,  and  at  last  the 
precious  document  was  handed  to  me,  and  I  was 
really  free  to  start.    But  it  was  now  dark. 

(19)* 


Cloud  and  Silver 

The  road  from  Meaux  leaves  the  town  by  a  hill, 
crosses  a  canal,  and  then  mounts  and  winds,  and 
mounts  again,  and  dips  and  mounts,  between 
fields  of  stubble,  with  circular  straw-stacks  as 
their  only  occupant.  The  first  intimation  of  any- 
thing untoward,  besides  the  want  of  life,  was,  on 
the  distant  hill,  the  spire  of  the  little  white  village 
of  Barcy,  which  surely  had  been  damaged.  As 
one  drew  nearer  it  was  clear  that  not  only  had 
the  spire  been  damaged,  but  that  the  houses  had 
been  damaged  too.  The  place  seemed  empty  and 
under  a  ban.  Why  from  yet  far  away  one  village 
should  look  cursed  and  another  prosperous,  I  can- 
not say;  but  this  one  suggested  only  calamity, 
and  as  one  drew  nearer  its  fate  became  more 
certain. 

I  stopped  the  car  outside,  at  the  remains  of  a 
burned  shed,  and  walked  along  the  desolate  main 
street.  All  the  windows  were  broken;  the  walls 
were  indented  in  little  holes  or  perforated  by  big 
ones.  The  roofs  were  in  ruins.  Here  was  the 
post  office ;  it  was  now  half  demolished  and  boarded 
up.  There  was  the  inn;  it  was  now  empty  and 
forlorn.  Half  the  great  clock  face  leant  against 
a  wall.  Every  one  had  fled — it  was  a  "deserted 
village"  with  a  vengeance:  nothing  left  but  a  few 
fowls.  Everything  was  damaged;  but  the  church 
had  suffered  most.  Half  of  the  shingled  spire 
was  destroyed;  most  of  the  roof  and  the  great 
bronze  bell  lay  among  the  debris  on  the  ground. 
It  is  as  though  the  enemy's  policy  was  to  intimi- 
date the  simple  folk  through  the  failure  of  their 
(20) 


My  First  Battle-Field 

supernatural  stronghold.  "If  the  church  is  so 
pregnable,  then  what  chance  have  we?" — that  is 
the  question  which  it  was  perhaps  hoped  would  be 
asked.  Where,  I  wondered,  were  those  villagers 
now,  and  what  were  the  chances  of  the  rebuilding 
of  these  old  peaceful  homes,  so  secure  and  placid 
only  four  months  ago  ? 

And  then  I  walked  to  the  battle-field  a  few 
hundred  yards  away,  and  only  too  distinguishable 
as  such  by  the  little  cheap  tricolours  on  the  hastily- 
dug  graves  among  the  stubble  and  the  ricks. 
Hitherto  I  had  always  associated  such  ricks  with 
landscapes  by  Monet,  and  the  sight  of  one  had 
recalled  the  other;  but  henceforward  when  I  see 
them  I  shall  think  of  these  poor  pathetic  graves 
sprinkled  among  them,  at  all  kinds  of  odd  angles 
to  each  other — for  evidently  the  holes  were  dug 
parallel  with  the  bodies  beside  them — with  each  a 
little  wooden  cross  hastily  tacked  together,  and 
on  some  the  remnants  of  the  soldier's  coat  or  cap, 
or  even  boots,  and  on  some  the  red,  white,  and 
blue.  As  far  as  one  could  distinguish,  these  little 
crosses  broke  the  view;  some  against  the  sky-line, 
for  it  is  hilly  about  here,  others  against  the  dark 
soil. 

It  was  a  day  of  lucid  November  sunshine.  The 
sky  was  blue  and  the  air  mild.  A  heavy  dew  lay 
on  the  earth.  Not  a  sound  could  be  heard;  not 
a  leaf  fluttered.  No  sign  of  life.  We  (for  the 
hearthrug  had  left  his  car  and  joined  me)  we 
were  alone,  save  for  the  stubble  and  the  ricks  and 
the  wooden  crosses  and  the  little  flags.    How  near 

(21) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  dead  seemed!  much  nearer  than  in  any 
cemetery. 

Suddenly  a  distant  booming  sounded;  then  an- 
other and  another.  It  was  the  guns  at  either 
Soissons  or  Rheims — the  first  thunder  of  battle  I 
had  ever  heard. 

Thus  I  too,  non-combatant  as  Anno-Domini 
forces  me  to  be,  learned  something  of  war — a  very 
little,  it  is  true,  but  enough  to  make  a  difference 
in  reading  the  letters  from  the  trenches  or  meet- 
ing a  wounded  soldier  or  a  Belgian  refugee.  For 
I  had  gained  a  permanent  background  for  their 
tragedies. 


'(**) 


THE  MAKNE  AFTER  THE  BATTLE 

IN  the  destruction  of  the  Marne  villages  there 
was  much  caprice.  This  one  is  destroyed: 
that  unharmed.  This  one,  such  as  Revigny, 
which  is,  however,  bigger  than  a  village,  is  care- 
fully divided  into  two  halves,  one  left  as  it  was 
and  one  ruined.  Vitry-le-Francois,  a  large  market 
town  on  the  great  canal  that  eventually  joins  the 
Rhine,  was  only  looted;  Sermaize-les-Bains,  an 
inland  watering-place,  was  almost  totally  de- 
stroyed. At  Heiltz-le-Maurupt,  partly  no  doubt  to 
show  with  what  skill  they  could  control  their 
incendiarism,  the  Germans  carefully  isolated  a 
Protestant  chapel. 

Only  one  house,  and  that  a  large  farm  useful 
to  the  enemy,  on  the  outskirts,  remains  at  Vassin- 
court,  a  high-standing  village  where  hard  fighting 
occurred.  Many  were  the  killed,  and  the  graves 
are  so  shallow  that  it  is  now  far  from  sanitary. 
At  the  Cafe  des  Ruines,  a  mere  shed  which  has 
sprung  up,  is  pinned  to  the  wall  a  piece  of  canvas: 
a  relic  of  poor  Pegoud's  aeroplane  sent  to  the 
proprietor  by  his  soldier  son.  Another  village 
almost  wholly  destroyed  is  Maurupt.  And  then, 
close  by  these,  you  find  quiet  villages  that  are  as 
they  were,  except  for  a  brooding  anxiety.     Here 

(23) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  Germans  destroyed  nothing,  but  merely  took 
horses  and  food.  In  some  cases,  of  course,  the 
burning  may  have  been  disciplinary;  in  some  cases 
the  shelling  was  part  of  a  genuine  battle ;  but  often 
enough  the  escape  of  one  place  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  another  was  due  to  mere  differences  of 
character  in  the  enemy's  commanding  officers — this 
one  being  humane  and  that  brutal,  just  as  men 
may  be  in  ordinary  daily  life. 

The  churches  have  suffered  very  seriously,  not 
without  reason.  Sometimes  guns  were  mounted 
on  them;  often  they  were  the  scenes  of  bloody 
hand-to-hand  conflict;  while  as  coigns  of  observa- 
tion their  towers  were  naturally  undesired  by  the 
invaders.  There  was  therefore  ground  for  their 
destruction.  In  many  cases  also  they  were  as 
much  hit  by  French  as  German  shells,  notably  at 
Huiron,  near  Vitry-le-Francois,  which  stands,  like 
so  many  Marne  villages,  on  a  high  watershed. 
Huiron  church  is  now  just  a  husk.  Over  the  door 
is  a  pretty  sculptured  saint,  unharmed,  as  is  so 
often  the  case  in  these  church  ruins.  At  Revigny 
the  tower  is  smashed  and  the  bell  lies  in  fragments 
on  the  floor,  but  enough  of  the  edifice  remains  for 
worship. 

Here  and  there  one  picks  up  stories  of  privation 
and  fortitude,  true  enough  but  almost  past  belief. 
In  one  high-standing  village,  now  ruined,  for  in- 
stance, was  a  man  who,  at  the  approach  of  the 
Germans,  hurried  to  the  forest  of  the  Argonne 
(24) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

with  his  dog.  There  he  hid  for  three  days  with 
nothing  to  eat,  watching  the  sky  glow  red  with 
the  flames  of  his  own  and  other  villages,  and  hear- 
ing the  incessant  guns.  Then  he  ate  his  dog. 
Three  days  later  he  returned.  He  looks  just  like 
other  men. 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

At  Maurupt  is  a  small  boy  who,  wandering  in 
a  wood  just  after  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  came 
upon  a  wounded  German.  What  did  he  do  ?  What 
should  he  have  done?  What  would  you  or  I  have 
done?  I  cannot  say.  But  the  small  boy  returned 
swiftly  to  his  home,  obtained  a  chopper,  and, 
saying  not  a  word  to  any  one,  again  sought  the 
wood.  .  .  .  He  is  now  a  hero.  If  you  go  to 
Maurupt  he  will  be  pointed  out  to  you. 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

There  are  no  young  men  in  the  villages;  no 
men  of  middling  age;  only  old  men,  women,  girls, 
and  children.  The  women  do  the  work — drive  the 
carts,  control  the  harvesters,  the  mechanical  reap- 
ers and  binders  (and  the  name  of  Pilter  is  prob- 
ably better  known  than  that  of  Poincare  in  this 
district),  milk,  plough,  sow.  Were  it  not  for  the 
children,  there  would  be  no  relief  to  the  prevalent 
adult  expression,  which  is  sombre  or  resigned ;  and, 
indeed,  acceptance  of  disaster  may  be  said  to  be  the 
new  rural  spirit,  if  the  word  spirit  can  be  applied 
to  such  a  negative  state.  September  6-12,  1914, 
left  an  ineradicable  melancholy,  so  swift  was  the 
onrush,  so  terrible  the  rage,  so  irreparable  and 
gratuitous  the  injury. 

(25) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  many  of  the  old 
women  confess  to  an  upheaval  of  their  faith? 
Why,  they  ask,  should  such  calamity  have  come 
upon  them?  What  had  they  done  to  deserve  it? 
One  old  lady  gives  it  out  that  she  will  trouble 
Joan  of  Arc,  whose  statue  is  in  her  village  church, 
with  prayers  no  more.  "She  has  abandoned  us,"  is 
her  complaint. 

During  the  harvesting  season  regiments  were 
sometimes  billeted  on  villages  for  a  month  at  a 
time,  so  that  the  soldiers  might  help  in  getting 
in  the  crops.  For  crops  are  needed  not  much 
less  than  the  death  of  Germans.  One  of  these 
soldiers  was  himself  a  farmer  in  the  Midi.  On  his 
own  distant  farm  were  just  two  women,  one  very 
old,  and  his  fields  were  lying  idle  with  none  to 
reap  or  carry.  Meanwhile  from  dawn  to  dusk  he 
harvested  for  a  stranger. 

The  ruins  have  a  strangely  foreign,  un-French, 
appearance — due  very  largely  to  the  chimney 
stacks  which  resisted  the  fire  and  for  the  most 
part  still  stand.  They  make  the  total  effect  one 
of  a  dead  city  of  monoliths.  Often  no  attempt 
has  been  made  to  remove  any  of  the  debris.  Bed- 
steads twisted  into  odd  shapes  by  the  heat  are 
very  common  obj  ects.  Bicycles  similarly  deformed 
are  rarer,  but  one  sees  them,  and  almost  always 
the  isolated  kitchen  range,  rusted  and  gaping  but 
holding  its  own  with  a  fine  independence  and  de- 
termination, is  visible.  It  seems  to  say  that  what- 
(26) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

ever  else  the  Germans  may  have  done  they  could 
not  break  the  indomitable  spirit  of  the  French 
cuisine ! 

Very  little  real  rebuilding  has  yet  been  done — 
for  who  is  to  rebuild?  Rebuilding  needs  strong 
men,  and  strong  men  are  wanted  more  seriously 
elsewhere.  Strong  men  are  with  their  "Grand- 
pere."  But  the  French  Engineers  have  put  up 
wooden  and  tiled  abris  here  and  there,  and  the 
young  men  of  the  Society  of  Friends  have  been 
busy  too;  while  hundreds  of  families  still  live  in 
their  cellars  beneath  a  sloping  roof.  The  huts  built 
by  the  Friends  are  very  simple:  two  or  three 
rooms  at  most,  with  a  roof  of  tiles  or  carton.  The 
planks  are  of  poplar,  as  they  ought  to  be  in  the 
land  of  poplars:  a  tough  fibrous  wood,  little  used 
in  England,  but  which  in  France  is  the  favourite 
for  sabots.  Centuries  ago,  some  one  tells  me,  the 
Romans  made  shields  of  it.  The  Friends  provide 
the  labour  and  the  cars;  the  French  Government 
give  the  materials;  but  wood  shortage  is  continual, 
since  who  is  to  cut  it? 

The  Society  of  Friends  have  been  and  are  busy 
not  only  in  hut-building  but  in  all  kinds  of  recon- 
stitution:  distributing  seeds,  chickens,  rabbits, 
clothes,  teaching  the  children,  nursing,  and  so 
forth.  For  the  Sinistres,  as  the  burned-out  popu- 
lace are  called,  naturally  often  lose  all,  and  they 
need  every  kind  of  help  in  beginning  again.  How 
such  stalwart  young  fellows  in  their  grey  uniforms 

{27). 


Cloud  and  Silver 

first  struck  the  simple  and  still  half-dazed  peas- 
antry of  the  Marne,  I  do  not  know:  but  the  subtle- 
ties of  English  sects  and  pacifism  could  not  have 
been  an  open  book.  Watching  several  of  the 
Friends  at  work  on  a  shed,  a  cure  put  to  me  the 
very  natural  question,  "Are  all  Englishmen  car- 
penters ?" 

The  Friends'  main  field  of  labour  in  the  Marne 
lies  between  Chalons-sur-Marne,  Bar-le-duc,  and 
Vitry-le-Francois.  Sermaize-les-Bains,  from  which 
most  of  the  operations  have  been  directed,  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  triangle  formed  by  these  towns. 
Chalons  is  the  great  military  centre,  and  there 
the  Friends  have  a  maternity  hospital,  and  from 
Chalons  their  cars  dash  into  Rheims  to  dare  the 
shells  and  bring  away  patients.  Later,  I  imagine 
the  Friends  will  penetrate  far  into  the  Meuse  and 
carry  on  their  good  work  there. 

Vitry-le-Francois,  named  after  Francois  I,  must 
be  one  of  the  neatest  provincial  towns  in  the  world. 
Built  by  a  monarch  of  orderly  mind,  though  some- 
what irregular  habits  (as  one  Diane  de  Poictiers 
could  relate),  it  fulfils  a  rectangular  plan.  In 
the  middle  of  it  is  a  square;  within  that  is  a 
smaller  square  of  lime  trees,  whose  branches  have 
been  severely  cut  into  cubes;  and  in  the  middle  of 
that  is  a  fountain.  From  this  fountain  radiate  the 
four  principal  streets. 

•  ••••• 

(28) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

The  fountain  itself,  rather  daringly  in  such 
close  proximity  to  the  real  article,  represents  the 
Marne,  that  great  and  beautiful  and  very  green 
and  now  poignantly  historic  river  on  which  Vitry 
is  situated.  And  the  symbol  of  the  Marne  is, 
naturally  enough  in  France,  a  bronze  lady:  a  feat 
of  imagery  which,  since  the  stream  can  be  seen 
only  a  few  yards  away,  should  have  the  effect  of 
turning  the  youth  of  the  town  either  into  poets 
or,  by  way  of  protest,  realists.  It  suggests  also 
that  some  limit  of  distance  from  the  fact  should 
be  set  upon  symbolic  sculpture.  There,  however, 
she  stands,  this  bronze  lady,  not  much  more  motion- 
less than — especially  on  Sundays  and  in  the  eve- 
ning— stand  the  multitude  of  anglers  on  her  river's 
actual  banks.  For  Vitry-le-Francois  fishes  with  a 
unanimity  and  application  such  as  I  never  saw 
before.  Every  one  fishes:  old  women  fish;  young 
women;  mothers  with  their  children;  girls;  boys; 
elderly  men;  the  barber  with  the  strabismus  who 
is  so  anxious  to  learn  English;  the  tall  man  with 
one  leg  who  manages  his  bicycle  so  cleverly:  all 
fish.  After  five  o'clock  they  are  as  sure  to  be  by 
the  river  as  the  bronze  lady  is  sure  to  be  in  the 
centre  of  the  square.  But,  most  of  all,  the  soldiers 
fish.  Vitry  is  packed  with  soldiers,  and  every 
one  has  a  rod.  When  work  is  done  they  hold  their 
rods  over  the  river  with  a  pacific  content  that  for 
the  moment  reduces  Guillaumism  to  a  dream,  a 
myth.  But  for  that  dread  menace  they  would 
not  be  there  in  such  numbers,  it  is  true,  yet  how 

(29) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

can  one  fear  the  worst  so  long  as  they  angle,  these 
warriors,  with  such  calm  and  intensity? 

No  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  ever  catches  anything ; 
but  what  of  that?  It  is  notorious  that  fishing  and 
catching  fish  can  be  totally  opposed  pursuits.  Noth- 
ing ever  discourages  or  depresses  the  Vitry  enthusi- 
asts. They  fish  on;  they  smoke  on;  they  exchange 
jests  and  hopes.  The  barber,  with  his  white 
j  acket  and  his  ragged  beard,  who  for  the  most  part 
has  one  eye  on  his  float  and  the  other  on  the  street 
whence  would  come  running  the  boy  who  lathers 
the  customers,  may  now  and  then  examine  his  hook 
with  a  gesture  of  surprise,  but  he  is  not  really 
concerned  to  find  no  fish  squirming  there.  Simi- 
larly, at  intervals,  every  soldier  withdraws  his 
line  to  replenish  his  bait  or  move  his  float;  but 
they  too  are  not  down-hearted.  I  say  float,  for 
it  is  wholly  that  kind  of  fishing.  No  flies,  no 
reels  even;  nothing  but  a  rod,  a  piece  of  string,  a 
float,  two  split  shots,  a  hook,  and  some  quite  super- 
fluous lure.  A  few  more  imaginative  minds  add  a 
landing-net.  I  have  sometimes  wondered  what 
would  happen  if  a  fish  with  a  sense  of  fun  did 
once  permit  itself  to  be  drawn  from  the  river. 
Would  they  run  as  from  a  sea-serpent?  I  imagine 
them,  en  masse,  soldiers  and  civilians,  old  and 
young,  stampeding  from  the  banks.  "A  fish! 
A  fish!" 

Vitry  has  several  inns,  but  only  two  that  count, 
and  one  of  these,  the  older  and  more  stately  look- 
(30) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

ing,  does  not  deserve  to.  It  is  ancient  and  mould- 
ering, and  nobody  cares.  You  ring  the  bell,  to  no 
purpose.  You  ring  again  and  again,  and  then  dis- 
cover that  it  is  broken,  has  been  broken  for  years. 
"La  sonnette  est  cassee,"  you  remark  severely. 
"Oui,"  the  patronne  acquiesces,  "elle  ne  marche 
pas."  At  this  hotel  nothing  marches.  In  the 
stable  are  no  horses;  in  the  coach-house  is  one 
omnibus  with  three  wheels  and  one  with  two. 
Progress  not  only  has  passed  it  by  but  has  not  even 
glanced  at  it. 

Vitry  has  also  several  cafes,  one  of  which,  by 
the  canal  towpath,  where  the  weary  horses  plod, 
bravely  calls  itself  the  "Cafe  de  Navigation." 
As  for  the  others,  they  are  of  the  regular  pattern 
— "de  Commerce,"  "de  Paris,"  and  so  forth.  It  also 
has  many  shops,  for  it  is  a  centre  of  an  agricul- 
tural district,  and  farmers  and  farmers'  wives — 
chiefly  farmers'  wives  nowadays — rely  upon  it  for 
the  necessities  of  life.  And  mention  of  the  shops 
reminds  me  of  an  experience  in  Vitry  which  I 
shall  ever  cherish,  for  I  too,  finding  myself  one 
day  in  want  of  a  necessity  of  life,  entered  the  chief 
ironmonger's  and  laid  my  need  before  the  assistant. 
A  corkscrew?  Assuredly.  He  had  all  kinds.  He 
displayed  first  one  and  then  another,  remarking 
that  the  second  was  "plus  serieux."  It  was,  of 
course,  the  more  serious  corkscrew  that  I  bought. 
"Great  sensible  land  of  France,"  I  said  to  myself, 
as  I  bore  away  this  precious  purchase,  "where  the 
words  'serious'  and  'corkscrew'  can  be  so  naturally 

(31) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

allied!"  For  the  rest  of  my  life  corkscrews  will 
fall  into  the  two  divisions — serious  and  the 
reverse. 

In  a  provincial  paper,  Le  Republicain,  published 
at  Vitry,  I  find  the  following  fine  and  tender  letter 
written  by  a  French  soldier  to  a  little  girl  who 
had  sent  him  a  gift.  It  has  great  and  very  French 
qualities,  I  think: 

Du  front,  le  16  mai  1915 
Ma  chere  petite  fille 

Je  m'empresse  de  repondre  a,  votre  charmante 
lettre  qui  m'a  procure  bien  des  emotions. 

Par  la  meme  occasion  je  vous  accuse  reception 
du  colis  annonce. 

Votre  petite  lettre  m'arrivant  juste  apres  le 
terrible  assaut  que  nous  venons  de  subir  et  au  cours 
duquel  nous  avons  eu  la  douleur  de  perdre  notre 
capitaine,  m'a  encore  plus  impressionne. 

Oui,  chere  petite  fille,  vous  etes  encore  bien 
jeune  pour  comprendre  la  vie,  mais  conservez  cette 
lettre  et  dans  quelques  annees  lorsque  vous  serez 
plus  reflechie,  vous  pourrez  comprendre  combien  il 
m'etait  doux  de  retrouver  en  vous  les  paroles  et 
baisers  de  mes  enfants  que  j 'attends  depuis  plus 
de  10  mois. 

Oui,  c'est  tres  bien  de  votre  part  cette  genereuse 
idee  suggeree  par  un  professeur  devouee  qui  sait 
apprecier  les  craintes  etles  esperances  d'un  soldat 
sans  nouvelles  de  sa  famille  et  qui  s'applique  a  le 
consoler. 

(32) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

Peut-etre  aurai-je  un  jour  le  bonheur  de  vous 
rencontrer,  car  les  hasards  de  la  vie  sont  si  grands. 
Ce  jour-la  vous  pourrez  etre  assuree  de  trouver 
non  pas  un  ingrat  mais  un  second  pere. 

Ma  chere  petite  fille,  mille  fois  merci  ainsi  qu'a. 
votre  professeur  et  ce  sera  avec  plus  d'ardeur 
encore  et  de  bravoure  que  je  lutterai  pour  la  libera- 
tion de  notre  chere  France. 

Esperons  que  ce  beau  jour  n'est  plus  loin  et 
recevez  ma  chere  petite  fille  les  meilleurs  baisers 
d'un  artilleur. 

Signe:  Jules  Malaises 

Like  all  provincial  French  towns,  Vitry  has  its 
share  of  clubs.  I  made  a  list  of  them  for  sheer 
pleasure  in  reading  their  friendly  names.  Here 
are  some:  Les  Disciples  de  Progres;  Veloce  Club 
Vitryat;  Societe  des  Combattants  de  1870-71; 
Societe  des  Sciences  et  des  Arts;  Les  Fraternels 
anciens  Sous-officiers ;  Jeunesse  Republicaine 
Vitryate;  and  Societe  des  Veterans  de  Terre  et  de 
Mer.  Can  you  not  see  them  on  Club  nights  ?  The 
animation  of  it  all:  the  jokes,  the  laughter.  I 
should  like  to  peep  in  at  the  Combattants  of 
1870-71!  white-moustached  old  fellows,  some  with 
only  one  arm  or  leg.  And  the  veterans  of  the 
earth  and  the  sea  should  be  worth  a  visit. 

The  Germans  overflowed  Vitry  early  in  the  war. 
The  Mayor  and  Corporation  fled,  but  the  cure,  a 
venerable  and  imposing  white-haired  figure,  re- 
mained.   I  heard  him  tell  the  story  in  a  sermon  to 

(33) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  militaires,  and  it  lost  nothing  in  his  rhetoric. 
The  town  would  have  been  burnt  but  for  the  vast 
numbers  of  German  wounded  in  it.  A  certain 
amount  of  looting  was  done,  but  not  much.  The 
Vitry  people  on  the  whole  do  not  give  the  Huns 
such  a  bad  character. 

It  was  at  this  special  service  in  Vitry's  great 
church  that  I  felt  the  power  of  music  as  never 
before.  Suddenly  the  first  notes  of  a  solo  were 
heard  in  a  tender,  vibrant  tenor.  They  broke  on 
the  ear  without  warning  and  came  from  I  knew 
not  where,  but  by  moving  my  place — I  was  lean- 
ing against  a  pillar — I  saw,  high  up,  in  the  organ 
loft,  the  singer,  a  French  soldier  in  khaki.  He 
sang  not  only  exquisitely  but  so  movingly  that  it 
was  almost  pain,  and  yet  such  pain  as  one  would 
not  forgo.  Hoping  it  might  go  on  for  ever,  one 
trembled  lest  each  note  was  the  last.  It  was  so 
beautiful  that  one  feared  to  meet  any  other  eye. 
...  A  little  later  he  sang  again.  The  first  solo 
was  a  psalm,  set  to  some  wistful  cadences;  the 
second  was  a  hymn,  a  long  hymn  enumerating  the 
mercies  of  the  Lord.  Each  verse  began  with  the 
words  "Souvenez-vous ?"  Did  we  remember?  the 
singer  asked  us,  in  tones  so  gentle,  so  beseeching, 
and  yet  so  rich  that  they  touched  chords  that  I  did 
not  know  were  hidden  in  me ;  and  again  the  beauty 
of  it  was  almost  too  much  to  bear.  For  the  first 
time  I  realised  that  the  voice  is  also  an  instru- 
ment. .  .  .  Half  the  church  was  in  tears.  We 
(34) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

heard  later  that  the  singer  was  a  famous  operatic 
star  mobilise. 

Sermaize,  once  an  inland  watering-place, — 
where  the  Friends  have  their  head-quarters,  housed 
oddly  enough  in  an  old  casino,  a  disused  petits- 
chevaux  table  serving  as  the  director's  desk, — is  so 
ruined,  and  with  such  wantonness,  that  it  would 
be  an  ideal  spot  in  which  (were  it  not  that  that 
building  must  be  on  conquered  soil)  to  erect  the 
pavilion  where  at  the  end  of  the  war  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Powers  might  meet  to  confer  as 
to  terms  of  peace.  With  such  surroundings  our 
English  tendency  to  forgive  and  forget  could  not 
but  be  interrupted.  It  would  also,  I  think,  be 
interesting  and  valuable  if  the  demolished  village 
of  Vassincourt  were  retained  exactly  as  it  is  and 
the  new  village  erected  at  a  little  distance.  Then 
for  all  time  the  methods  of  the  Germans  in  a 
harmless  agricultural  district  would  be  on  record. 

One  of  the  occupants  of  a  Friends'  hut  who 
was  imprisoned  during  the  terrible  week  of  the 
Marne  battle  had  purchased  some  time  before  a 
coffre  fort  in  whose  impregnability  she  had  so  much 
confidence  that  she  thought  of  the  burning  of  her 
house  comparatively  undismayed.  When,  how- 
ever, liberty  came  again  and  she  hurried  to  the 
ruins  to  extract  the  safe  and  its  contents,  she 
found  that  it  had  played  her  false  and  everything 
inside  it  was  incinerated.  Among  the  things  were 
various  documents  reduced  to  ash,  and  a  jewel- 

(35) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

case.  The  jewel-case  she  now  displays  to  favoured 
visitors.  It  has  nothing  hut  its  hlackened  treasures 
in  it,  but  they  are  treasures  none  the  less : — a  ring 
with  her  father's  hair,  now  dust;  a  ring  with  her 
grandmother's  hair,  also  dust ;  a  locket  given  her  by 
her  great  lady  (she  had  been  a  domestic  servant) ; 
a  brooch  which  had  been  her  sister's ;  and  so  forth. 
The  fire  did  not  melt  them;  it  merely  turned  them 
to  dross.  As  she  handles  them  tenderly  one  by 
one,  the  tears  roll  softly  down  her  cheeks. 

All  relics  of  the  fighting  have  to  be  taken  to  the 
nearest  mairies  by  order  of  the  Prefect  of  the 
Marne;  but  it  is  a  rule  that  is  not  too  slavishly 
obeyed.  The  Mayor  of  fitrepy  showed  me  many 
curiosities,  including  a  vessel  used  by  the  Germans 
in  gassing.  After  the  enemy  had  passed  and  done 
their  worst,  great  quantities  of  their  inflammable 
gelatine  disks  were  found  here  and  flung  into  the 
neighbouring  river  Sault.  They  are  square,  the 
size  of  a  quarter  postage  stamp,  and  as  thick  as 
sixpence.  First,  soldiers  would  pass  down  the 
streets  flinging  bombs  through  the  windows,  and 
then  others  would  follow  to  throw  in  handfuls  of 
these  little  fiendish  squares  to  complete  the  con- 
flagration. The  Mayor  led  me  to  a  field  behind  his 
new  home  and  showed  me  the  gun  positions,  and 
also  a  great  black  circle  in  the  grass,  covered  with 
cinders.  These,  he  said,  were  the  remains  of  a 
funeral  pyre  of  German  bodies  over  which  pitch 
was  poured,  there  being  no  time  to  bury  them. 
It  is  strange  to  hold  in  one's  hand  a  piece  of  this 
(36) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

slag — concentrated  residuum  of  I  know  not  how 
many  of  the  foe. 

Every  one  is,  of  course,  a  souvenir-collector — 
in  spite  of  the  mairies.  On  most  mantelpieces  is  a 
French  75  shell-case,  and  few  men  are  without 
some  pocket  curiosity  to  display.  The  most  inter- 
esting thing  shown  to  me  was  a  little  fragment  of 
red  glass — picked  up  on  the  floor  of  Rheims 
Cathedral.  One  of  the  oddest  German  relics  which 
I  saw  was  a  tiny  book,  all  rain-stained  and  torn. 
It  contained  a  series  of  rhymed  protestations  of 
affection  and  fidelity  suitable  to  be  written  on  post 
cards  and  sent  back  to  Gretchen. 

In  a  wooden  hut  erected  by  the  Friends  lives 
an  old  woman  to  whose  house  came  three  huge  and 
terrible  Germans  demanding  food.  They  took  all 
she  had,  chiefly  potatoes;  but  even  as  they  did  so 
all  three  were  killed.  She  now  sits  hour  after  hour 
at  her  door  and  sews ;  while  under  the  potato  patch 
in  her  little  garden  those  three  Germans  lie. 

In  another  of  the  Friends'  huts  is  an  old  woman 
who  was  imprisoned  by  the  Germans  for  two  or 
three  days  during  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  but,  as 
she  proudly  records,  they  made  no  impression  on 
her  spirit.  Not  they!  Not  she!  While  under 
lock  and  key  she  noticed  with  anger  a  German 
soldier  cleaning  a  coffee-cup  with  a  lady's  chemise 
of  exquisite  texture — probably  snatched  from  the 
neighbouring   chateau  .  which    they    had    carefully 

(87) 


303868 


Cloud  and  Silver 

burned.  Some  time  later  the  German,  who  could 
speak  French,  asked  her  if  she  would  like  a  cup 
of  coffee.  "Have  some  coffee,  grandmother?"  were 
his  words.  "Yes — if  the  chemise  is  clean,"  she 
retorted.     She  tells  this  story  with  immense  relish. 

During  the  summer  of  1915  great  supplies  of 
crosses  were  prepared  for  the  graves  of  the  fallen, 
both  French  and  German,  in  the  department  of 
the  Marne.  The  German  graves  are  marked  by 
a  railing  and  cross  of  silver  birch,  with  the  dead 
man's  number  affixed.  The  French  graves  have 
a  more  enduring  painted  wooden  railing,  a  cross, 
and  the  tricolour.  Often  the  poor  fellow's  kepi  is 
there  too,  and  sometimes  his  coat  and  boots.  When 
the  grave  is  near  habitations — and  that  means  near 
a  village,  for  there  are  no  isolated  houses — it  often 
has  flowers  placed  on  it.  The  graves  occur  in  the 
oddest  places:  in  the  midst  of  fields, — more  than 
once  I  saw  the  tricolour  just  visible  among  the 
ripening  corn, — beside  the  road,  in  front  gardens 
and  back.  At  Pargny,  for  example,  there  are  sev- 
eral graves  in  a  garden  close  to  the  railway,  and 
just  behind  a  neighbouring  chateau  three  Germans 
lie,  two  named  and  one  unidentified,  but  all  com- 
mended to  God's  mercy.  The  chateau  was  closed, 
and  one  wonders  if  on  the  owner's  return  these 
graves  will  be  removed. 

For  the  present,  I    believe,  no   French  graves 
are  to  be  disturbed;   but  in   course  of  time  the 
question  of  permitting  relatives  to  remove  bodies 
(38) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

to  consecrated  ground  may  be  considered.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  surreptitious  removal  was  practised 
at  first — very  naturally,  I  think — but  that  was  soon 
stopped.  Of  course  private  feelings  have  to  be 
borne  in  mind,  but  where  they  are  not  strong  I  hope 
that  the  graves  will  remain  scattered  about  as  they 
now  are.  Probably  a  large  number  are  certain  to 
remain;  and  as  it  is,  it  is  no  rare  experience  to 
see  a  grave  dating  from  the  war  of  1870 — always 
an  impressive  sight. 

One  thing  is  sure,  and  that  is  that  the  great 
composite  graves  must  remain.  Some  of  these, 
in  the  parts  where  an  engagement  was  fierce,  con- 
tain large  numbers  of  bodies,  even  upwards  of  a 
hundred.  There  are  some  near  Maurupt.  For  the 
most  part  they  are  distinct — the  French  lying 
together  and  the  Germans  lying  together,  and 
they  are  marked  accordingly;  but  at  one  village 
whose  name  I  forget,  not  far  from  Blesmes,  is  a 
grave  in  which  a  Frenchman  who  accounted  for 
more  than  thirty  of  the  foe  is  buried  with  them. 
The  German  officer  who  destroyed  Sermaize  by 
shell  and  fire  is  buried  just  outside  the  town,  in  a 
great  sloping  meadow,  and  with  him  are  certain 
others.  He  had  been  wounded,  but  was  writing 
triumphantly  to  his  wife  when  the  French  dashed 
in  and  captured  him.     His  wound  proved  fatal. 

In  a  mass  of  outbuildings  which  I  visit — stables 
and  lofts,  dairy,  wash-house  and  coach-house,  now 
empty,  but  occupied  by  the  Germans  during  the 

(39) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

battle  of  the  Marne  for  a  night  or  so,  and  by  many 
French  regiments  on  their  way  to  the  Front  since 
then — are  a  series  of  five  little  rooms,  probably 
originally  meant  for  grooms.  Here  at  one  time, 
for  a  rather  longer  period  than  usual,  a  group  of 
French  officers  lived.  Their  names  are  on  the 
walls,  together  with  some  of  their  portraits  in 
silhouette  (made  by  throwing  the  shadow  of  the 
profile  with  a  candle,  pencilling  round  the  edges, 
and  then  blacking  it  all  in),  verses,  mottoes,  senti- 
ments, such  as  "Vivent  les  femmes,  le  vin,  et  le 
tabac!"  and  a  number  of  high-spirited  drawings 
which,  in  the  words  of  a  cure  who  was  with  me, 
are  distinctly  "pas  propres"  and  ought  never  to 
have  met  his  virginal  eyes.  One  of  the  poems 
enumerates  the  many  gifts  of  a  young  officer  of 
Zouaves,  a  very  Admirable  Crichton.  His  name  is 
given.  And  when  one  reaches  the  end  where  the 
poet's  signature  is,  behold  the  hero  and  his  eulogist 
are  one!  Another  is  a  savage  attack  by  an  assas- 
sin, in  the  manner  of  Aristide  Bruant,  on  the 
judges  of  France.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
if  the  confessions  in  this  strange  doggerel  were 
really  autobiographical.  There  are  enough  to 
guillotine  him. 

I  was  present  in  one  village  on  the  night  that 
marching  orders  had  come  to  the  regiment  which 
had  been  billeted  there  for  some  weeks.  They 
were  from  the  Midi,  and  spoke  mostly  the  guttural 
French  that  one  hears  in  Toulouse  and  Marseilles. 
The  village  street,  the  usual  alternation  of  white 
(40) 


The  Marne  After  the  Battle 

cottages  and  farm-houses,  was  pitch  dark  save  for 
the  glimmering  of  light  from  a  window  here  and 
there;  and  as  it  was  full  of  wagons  all  ready  for 
departure  at  daybreak,  walking  there  was  danger- 
ous. Songs  came  from  this  room  and  that:  ditties 
familiar  to  all,  for  all  were  sung  in  rich  unison. 
Whenever  a  lull  came  one  heard  the  low  whispered 
tones  of  farewells  in  the  darker  corners.  How 
many  broken  hearts  these  careless,  homeless  fight- 
ing-men leave  behind  them,  who  shall  say?  For 
they  carry  their  facile  affections  from  village  to 
village  as  they  steadily  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to 
the  Real  Thing. 

In  the  hotel  at  Vitry  was  a  French  officer's 
fiancee,  blonde  and  triste.  He  joined  her  at  the 
table  d'hote,  where  they  used  to  make  plans,  not 
with  too  much  confidence:  a  little  wistfully,  and  as 
though  the  gods  might  overhear.  "Apres  la 
guerre,"  she  would  say,  time  and  again,  and  he 
echoed  it:  "Apres  la  guerre!"  This  phrase  is  the 
burden  of  conversation  all  over  the  country,  from 
Calais  to  the  Pyrenees,  from  Ushant  to  Marseilles 
— "Apres  la  guerre!"  Then  what  things  will  be 
done!  For  those  who  do  not  look  too  deeply  or 
take  long  views,  all  that  is  joyful  and  perfect  is 
summed  up  in  these  words,  "Apres  la  guerre!" 


(41) 


WAYSIDE   NOTES 
I     Gratitude 

I  WAS  sitting  by  my  friend,  the  Captain,  home 
on  short  leave,  on  the  top  of  the  motor-bus; 
where  we  were  riding  because  of  the  fineness  of 
the  day  and  his  desire  to  see  more  of  that  strange 
foreign  city,  London,  rather  than  from  necessity, 
for  he  is  a  landowner  in  the  Shires  and  will  have 
a  good  four-figure  income  to  his  name  even  after 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  has  done  his 
worst  with  it. 

Well,  we  had  not  much  more  than  established 
ourselves  at  Piccadilly  Circus,  going  west,  when 
an  old  lady  on  the  seat  in  front  of  ours  leaned 
back  and  spoke  to  my  friend.  She  was  one  of  those 
old  ladies  whose  curves  are  all  very  soft.  She  had 
pretty  grey  hair,  and  gold-rimmed  glasses,  and  the 
voice  which,  from  its  kind  intonation,  is  usually 
called  motherly,  and  no  eyes  whatever  for  the  nice 
distinctions  of  military  rank.  Turning  half  round, 
she  asked  my  friend  what  regiment  he  was  in.  He 
told  her.  And  had  he  been  wounded?  No.  But 
he  had  been  in  the  trenches?  Oh  yes.  And  he 
was  going  back?     Directly  almost. 

And  here  the  conductor  came  up  with  "All 
fares,  please."  We  felt  for  our  money,  but  the 
(42) 


Wayside  Notes 

old  lady  interposed.    "Young  man/'  she  said  to  the 

Squire  of ,  "I  can't  let  you  pay  for  yourself. 

I  should  like  to  pay  for  you.  It's  little  enough 
one  can  do  for  our  brave  soldiers." 

The  poor  Captain  was  for  a  second  so  embar- 
rassed by  her  praise  that  he  could  say  nothing; 
but  there  was  a  fine  light  in  his  face  as  he  thanked 
her  and  watched  her  extract  his  penny  as  well  as 
her  own  from  the  old-fashioned  purse  in  her 
reticule. 

"There/'  she  said,  as  she  handed  the  two  coins 
to  the  conductor — "it  would  be  a  shame  to  let  you 
pay  that  yourself." 

These  are  the  awkward  moments.  It  was  so 
comic  and  so  beautiful;  and  I  was  glad  when  my 
friend,  although  we  were  far  from  our  destination, 
stood  up  to  descend. 

On  the  pavement  he  spoke.  "Another  minute 
and  I  should  have " 

"Laughed,"  I  supplied. 

"No,"  said  the  hero  of  a  year's  campaign, 
"cried." 

II     The  Mistake 

There  is  no  need  to  specify  the  restaurant.  It 
is  famous  for  its  English  fare,  and  visions  of  its 
joints,  pushed  thoughtfully  from  table  to  table  on 
little  carriages  by  elderly  white-robed  carvers,  are 
said  to  do  more  to  sustain  hope  in  the  trenches  than 
even  the  consolations  of  religion. 

To  one  of  the  tables,  provided  with  so  many 

(43) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

chairs  that  secrets  have  ever  been  out  of  the  ques- 
tion here,  came  two  lieutenants,  very  obviously  off 
duty  for  a  brief  season  and  rejoicing  in  their  lib- 
erty; and  he  who  was  acting  as  host,  and  had  long 
since  settled  all  doubts  as  to  what  their  meal  was 
to  consist  of,  flung  out  the  order  for  roast  beef  al- 
most before  he  was  seated;  flung  it  out  too  as 
though  expecting  as  instant  a  response  from  the 
staff  as  he  gets  from  his  men,  all  unmindful  that 
this  restaurant  has  leisurely  processes  of  its  own, 
carefully  acquired  and  perfected  during  many, 
many  years. 

Meanwhile  the  saddle  of  mutton  was  wheeled  to 
my  side  and  some  unusually  attractive  slices  were 
separated  from  it  and  laid  before  me. 

I  saw  the  lieutenants  eyeing  my  plate  with  ill- 
concealed  envy ;  but  beef  was  in  their  minds.  Beef 
had  been  in  their  minds  for  toilsome  weeks,  and 
they  did  not  betray  their  friend.  At  least  not 
wholly,  but  I  fancy  the  host  wavered. 

"I  wonder "  he  began,   and  said  no  more, 

for  the  beef  arrived  on  its  little  wagon,  and  their 
plates  were  soon  covered  with  it. 

It  was  not  one  of  the  most  successful  of  the 
house's  joints,  and  again  I  caught  their  eyes  di- 
rected towards  my  saddle.  Was  it  too  late?  their 
expression  silently  asked.  Yes,  it  was.  Besides, 
they  had  come  there  to  eat  beef.  Nothing  like 
beef! 

The  lieutenants  attacked  with  vigour,  but  they 
still  glanced  muttonwards  now  and  then,  medita- 
tively, between  bites. 
(44) 


Wayside  Notes 

Then  the  host  spoke.  It  was  in  an  undertone, 
but  I  heard,  because  at  this  restaurant,  as  I  have 
said,  there  are  no  secrets.  "I  wonder  if  we 
oughtn't  to  have  had  saddle  ?"  he  murmured. 

"It  looks  jolly  good,"  said  the  other. 

They  ate  on. 

"Do  you  think  the  beef  is  absolutely  top-hole 
to-day?"  the  host  asked. 

"I've  known  it  better,"  replied  the  other. 

They  ate  on. 

"I  rather  wish  we'd  had  mutton,"  said  the  host. 
"After  all — saddle,  you  know.  It's  not  too  com- 
mon. Beef  we  can  always  get  in  some  form  or 
other — not  like  this,  of  course,  but  beef — whereas 
saddle,  saddle's  rare.  I  wish  you'd  reminded  me 
of  the  saddles  here." 

"We'd  settled  on  beef  long  ago,"  said  the  other, 
performing  prodigies  of  valour  with  his  knife  and 
fork. 

"I  know;  but  it  was  foolish  not  to  look  at  the 
bill  of  fare.     I  should  have  thought  of  it  then." 

They  still  ate  heartily. 

"No  chance  of  getting  here  again  for  goodness 
knows  how  long,"  said  the  host. 

The  other  dismally  agreed. 

"Could  you  manage  a  slice  of  saddle  after  this  ?" 
the  host  asked  after  a  busy  interval. 

"Sorry  I  couldn't,"  replied  the  other,  through  a 
mouthful  which  a  lion  would  not  disdain. 

"I  don't  believe  I  could  either,"  said  the  host. 
"What  a  bore!  I  shall  always  regret  not  having 
had  mutton." 

(45) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"So  shall  I,"  said  the  other. 

At  this  moment  the  empty  seat  next  to  me  was 
filled,  and  to  the  inquiry  of  the  head  waiter,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  ask  these  questions  and  then  dis- 
appear for  ever,  the  customer  replied,  "Saddle,  of 
course.     That's  all  one  comes  here  for." 

Both  the  lieutenants  groaned  audibly.  Full 
though  they  were,  their  lunch,  already  ruined  by 
me,  was  ruined  again. 


Ill     Repentance 

At  the  unusual  sound  of  cheering  in  a  London 
street — at  so  undemonstrative  an  hour  as  9-15 
a.m. — I  turned  and  stopped.  Down  Charing  Cross 
Road  came  three  taxis,  each  containing  many  bags 
and  many  young  men — certainly  seven  young  men 
in  each,  packed  high  and  low — and  each  contain- 
ing two  or  more  of  that  beautiful  red,  white  and 
green  flag  which  flutters  so  gaily  and  bravely  over 
public  buildings  in  Rome  and  Florence  and  Turin, 
in  Venice,  Verona  and  Milan,  and  on  festa  days 
(which  seem  to  come  seven  times  a  week)  in  all 
the  villages  of  the  loveliest  land  on  earth. 

The  young  men  waved  and  shouted,  and  shame- 
faced London,  which  has  never  yet  cheered  its  own 
soldiers  through  the  street,  shouted  back.  For 
these  were  young  Italians  on  their  way  to  Italy, 
and  there  is  something  about  a  foreigner  hasten- 
ing home  to  fight  for  his  country  that  would  seem 
to  be  vastly  more  splendid  than  the  sight  of  our 
(46) 


Wayside  Notes 

own  compatriots  leaving  home  for  the  same  pur- 
pose.   So  oddly  are  we  English  made. 

Still,  these  young  fellows  were  so  jolly  and 
eager,  and,  even  in  the  moment  of  time  permitted 
by  their  sudden  apparition,  it  was  so  possible  to 
envisage  war's  horrors  in  front  of  them,  that  no 
wonder  there  was  this  unwonted  enthusiasm  in 
the  Charing  Cross  Road  at  9.15  a.m.  Besides, 
Italy  had  been  a  long  time  coming  in  .  .  . 

A  block  brought  the  taxis  to  a  standstill  just 
by  me,  and  I  was  conscious  of  something  familiar 
about  the  youth  in  grey  on  the  very  summit  of 
the  first.  He  had  perched  himself  on  the  fixed 
fore-part  of  the  cab,  and  knelt  there  waving  a 
straw  hat  in  one  hand  and  his  country's  flag  in 
the  other.  And  suddenly,  although  his  face  was 
all  aglow  and  his  mouth  twisted  by  his  clamour, 
I  recognised  him  as  a  waiter  at  the — well,  at  a 
well-known  restaurant,  whose  stupidity  had  given 
me  from  day  to  day  much  cause  for  irritation  and 
to  whom  I  had  again  and  again  been,  I  fear,  ex- 
ceedingly unpleasant.  Less  than  a  week  before  I 
had  been  more  than  usually  sharp.  And  now  I 
found  myself  trying  to  catch  his  eye  and  throw 
into  my  recognition  of  him  not  only  admiration 
but  even  affection — a  look  that  would  convince 
him  instantly  that  I  wished  every  impatient  word 
unsaid.  But  he  was  too  excited  to  see  anything 
in  particular.  His  gaze  was  for  the  London  that 
he  had  lived  in  and  was  now  leaving,  and  for  that 
London  as  a  whole;  and  his  thoughts  were  on  his 
native  land  and  the  larger  life  before  him.    He  had, 

(47) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

very  rightly,  at  the  moment  no  eyes  for  one  of 
those  impatient,  unreasonable  and  bad-tempered 
Englishmen  known  as  customers. 

In  a  few  moments  off  they  all  went  again,  and 
with  them  went  my  thoughts — to  their  beautiful 
land  of  sunshine  and  lizards,  of  blue  skies  and 
lovely  decay  and  absurd  gesticulating  men  with 
hearts  of  gold.  With  them  went  my  envy  too,  for 
it  must  be  wonderful  to  be  young  and  able  to 
give  up  carrying  plates  and  strike  a  blow  for  one's 
country. 

Since  then  I  have  found  myself  saying  to  my- 
self, I  don't  know  how  many  times,  "I  wish  he  had 
seen  me." 


(48) 


LAUGHTER  IN  THE  TRENCHES 

THE  careless  facetiousness  of  the  British  sol- 
dier in  the  fighting  line  of  the  present  war  is 
the  wonder  of  the  world.  Where  does  he  get  this 
spirit?  we  ask.  How  comes  it  that,  even  there, 
jokes  are  so  ready  to  his  tongue?  How  can  so 
much  of  his  terrible  business  lend  itself  to  jest? 
The  complete  answer  would  require  a  psycholog- 
ical memoir  of  great  length,  and  no  doubt  we 
should  in  the  course  of  it  alight  upon  the  fact 
that  irony  is  allied  to  courage,  or,  at  any  rate,  is 
one  of  the  best  protections  against  a  too  vivid 
perception  of  fact,  and,  collectively,  an  admirable 
means  of  concealing  deeper  feelings.  But  it  is  not 
the  British  soldier's  use  of  humour  as  a  sustaining 
influence  in  which  I  am  at  the  moment  interested, 
but  his  general  day  and  night  delight  in  it.  This 
not  only  is  new,  but  very  curious. 

For  the  best  rapid  idea  of  the  persistent  levity 
that  I  mean,  one  must  go  perhaps  to  the  drawings 
of  Captain  Bruce  Bairnsfather,  collected  in  a  book 
entitled  Fragments  from  France.  Here  may  be 
seen  two  score  and  more  diverting  pictures  of  Mr. 
Atkins  at  the  Front  informed  by  a  sardonic  laugh- 
ing philosophy.  The  horrors  of  war  are  by  no 
means  lacking.  Indeed,  but  for  those  horrors  we 
should  not  have  these  jokes:  the  relation  is  inti- 

(49) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

mate.  No  historian  of  the  war  who  takes  any 
account  of  the  psychology  of  the  New  Army  can 
afford  to  neglect  Captain  Bairnsfather's  work. 
And  it  certainly  reveals  the  value  of  irony  as  a 
prop  in  hard  times.  Without  that  buckler  no 
trench  fighter  is  fully  armed. 

What  is  the  cause  of  this  levity  in  this  most 
cruel  and  terrible  of  campaigns?  To  a  large 
extent  fashion.  Human  nature,  it  is  true,  does 
not  change,  but  human  veneers  change  very  often ; 
and  no  doubt  there  is  a  fashion  for  facetiousness 
to-day  that  did  not  exist  a  few  years  ago.  They 
had  their  jesters  then,  of  course,  but  the  joke  was 
not  essential;  it  was  not  yet  crowned.  To-day 
every  one  is  funny,  or  would  like  to  be  funny.  It 
is  a  kind  of  national  duty.  To-day  the  German 
trenches  are  given  comic  names,  and  bayonet 
charges  towards  them,  which  are  to  end  in  the 
bloodiest  and  most  dreaded  kind  of  warfare,  are 
dashed  into  to  such  battle-cries  as  "Early  doors, 
sixpence !" — a  significant  enough  form  of  words, 
for  it  is  largely  through  the  music-hall  and  theatre 
that  this  prevailing  and  far  from  undesirable 
tendency  to  jest  has  grown  and  spread.  Were  I 
lecturing  upon  the  two  Georges — Mr.  George 
Graves,  with  his  grotesque  epithet  or  simile  for 
every  incident  of  life;  and  Mr.  George  Robey, 
with  his  discoveries  of  the  humour  that  lurks  in 
seaminess — I  should  say  that  they  are  prime  mov- 
ers in  this  mode.  Without  them  and  what  they 
stand  for  there  would  not  exist  half  the  raillery 
that  now  enlivens  and  heartens  the  army. 
(50) 


Laughter  in  the  Trenches 

But  there  is  still  another  reason  for  the  levity 
of  our  men  in  this  war;  and  that  is  the  foe  him- 
self. Implacable  and  unscrupulous  as  the  enemy 
has  been,  the  German  qua  German  yet  remains  a 
comic  figure  to  the  mind  of  the  English  rank  and 
file  soldier,  who  is,  one  has  to  remember,  very 
largely  either  the  man  in  the  street  or  the  man  in 
the  village.  To  him  the  broad  idea  of  the  Ger- 
man, familiar,  though  not  much  considered,  for 
years,  is  a  quaint  foreigner,  often  in  too  sharp 
competition  with  Englishmen,  who  shaves  his  head, 
usually  wears  spectacles,  has  an  outlandish  speech, 
is  often  too  fat  and  always  too  alien;  while  it  is 
notorious  that  he  lives  on  sausages  and  that  they 
are  made  of  dachshunds.  Probably  the  insepara- 
ble association  of  the  sausage  with  Germany  would 
alone  have  served  to  render  the  German  a  figure 
pour  rire  in  the  eyes  of  the  unexamining,  for,  as 
has  been  often  enough  pointed  out,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  mention  this  article  of  diet  to  any  English 
music-hall  audience  to  have  them  in  fits  of  laughter. 
Why,  no  one  has  ever  wholly  understood.  For  the 
comedian  to  say  "kipper"  is  to  partake  of  much 
of  the  same  triumph,  but  not  all.  The  sausage 
comes  first,  and  the  German,  no  matter  what  the 
rest  of  his  activities  may  be,  or  how  dreadful,  is  a 
sausage-eater  or  even  sausage-worshipper. 

Such,  then,  is  the  preconception,  however 
erroneous,  and  it  is  so  firmly  fixed  that  not  even 
the  horrors  of  war  can  wholly  exclude  a  certain 
amusement    at   the  notion  of   this    figure,   indefi- 

(51) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

nitely  multiplied  and  clad  in  uniform,  constituting 
the  other  side. 

So  much  for  those  of  our  soldiers  who  had 
never  met  a  German.  There  remain  those  that 
had,  and  here  again  was  nothing  to  provoke  antici- 
patory gloom,  for  the  Germans  visible  and  tangible 
to  the  man  in  the  street  and  the  man  in  the  village 
are  Germans  who  have  shaved  them,  or  fed  them, 
or  done  them  out  of  jobs;  and  none  of  them, 
despite  their  efficiency,  were  ridicule  proof.  There 
was  something  comic  in  the  idea  of  an  enemy  con- 
sisting of  this  expatriated  parasitical  type  of  war- 
rior. It  made  the  campaign  wear  a  farcical  look. 
I  do  not  suggest  that  there  have  not  been  very 
serious  awakenings  and  realisations  to  the  contrary, 
but  the  preconception  gave  the  note  and  it  has 
persisted.  Moreover,  when  it  is  remembered  that 
the  British  soldier  is  more  ready  to  be  amused  than 
to  be  frightened,  it  will  be  seen  that  even  the 
Germans  themselves  have  contributed  not  a  little 
to  this  risibility  since  the  war  began.  That  they 
devastated  Belgium  is  true,  but  the  deed  carried 
its  penalty  with  it  in  the  name  Hun,  and  to  Mr. 
Atkins'  whimsical  mind  such  a  word  as  that,  and 
especially  without  the  aspirate,  is  meat  and  drink. 
An  enemy  who,  whatever  his  deadly  purposeful- 
ness,  can  be  characterised  as  'uns  is  bound  to 
attract  banter.  Then,  again,  there  was  the  French 
soldier's  word  for  him,  also  very  sympathetic  to 
the  British  sense  of  fun — Boche.  The  finer  types 
of  foe  could  never  be  called  either  'un  or  Bosh; 
and  when  an  'ymn  of  'ate  is  added  there  is  no  more 
(52) 


Laughter  in  the  Trenches 

to  be  said.  In  short,  whatever  the  Germans  have 
done,  they  have  left  a  loophole,  a  joint  in  the 
armour,  for  the  satirist  to  penetrate,  and  satire  was 
never  more  general  in  England  than  now. 

If  one  doubts  that  the  alleged  character  and 
physical  conformation  of  the  enemy  is  in  any  way 
responsible  for  so  much  jestingness  in  our  men, 
one  has  but  to  conjecture  what  would  be  the  case 
were  we  fighting  some  one  else.  Did  our  men,  for 
example,  exhibit  during  the  Crimean  War  anything 
approaching  the  sardonic  mirthfulness  of  their 
present  attitude?  I  can  find  no  evidence  that 
they  did.  And  is  it  likely,  were  the  Russians  of 
to-day  our  foes  instead  of  our  friends,  that  our 
men  would  fight  them  laughing  as  they  are  so  ready 
to  laugh  now?  I  think  not,  for  the  Russian  is 
certainly  not  a  figure  of  fun  to  the  English  mind. 
The  mass  of  us  know  almost  nothing  about  him, 
but  what  we  do  know,  or  think  we  know,  is  very 
serious. 

Or  against  the  French,  should  we  be  so  light- 
hearted,  so  ready  with  hilarity  ?  I  think  not.  The 
Frenchman,  once  a  target  for  English  ridicule, 
has  long  ceased  to  be  so.  To  this  generation 
the  term  "Froggy"  is  hardly  known.  Moreover, 
the  French,  when  it  comes  to  warfare,  have  a 
tradition  that  carries  a  very  impressive  weight. 
They  may  have  been  beaten  by  the  Germans  in 
1870,  but  Napoleon  is  still  a  gigantic  idea,  and 
atavistically  we  may  yet  be  conscious  of  the  Boney 
scares.  Anyway,  I  hold  that  whatever  precon- 
ception the  man  in  the  street  and  the  man  in  the 

(53) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

village  may  have  fostered  with  regard  to  the 
French,  there  was  no  element  of  contempt  in  it. 
One  reason  for  this  I  have  given,  and  the  other  is 
that  Frenchmen  are  rare  in  England,  and  when 
they  are  met  they  are  not  antipathetic  enough  for 
any  very  distinct  preconception  to  have  been 
formed,  and  certainly  not  one  of  disdain.  It  is 
the  admirable  nature  of  the  French  to  wish  to 
leave  France  as  little  as  they  can,  and,  once  away, 
to  wish  quickly  to  be  back  again;  and  with  such  a 
nostalgia  always  present,  they  are  concerned  to 
take  away  no  Englishman's  livelihood.  To  a 
Frenchman  there  is  no  home  but  the  country  which 
it  is  foolishly  customary  to  accuse  of  lacking  a 
word  for  that  sacred  haven;  whereas  many  Ger- 
mans who  bleat  tearfully  of  their  Fatherland  are 
never  happy  until  they  substitute  foreign  soil  for  it. 


(54,) 


THE  STNKTNO  OF  THE  TJ  29 
By  K  9 

I  AM  one  of  the  unhappiest  of  creatures,  be- 
cause I  have  been  misunderstood.  Nothing 
is  worse  than  to  mean  well  and  do  all  you  can,  and 
still  be  misunderstood  beyond  any  possibility  of 
explanation.  That  is  my  tragedy  just  now,  and  it 
all  comes  of  having  four  legs  and  no  articulation, 
when  the  people  who  control  things  have  only  two 
and  can  express  themselves. 

"Sirius,  how  I  ache!     But  let  me  tell  you. 

"I  am  a  performing  dog — nothing  more  and 
nothing  less.  I  am  associated  with  a  man  named — 
but  perhaps  I  had  better  not  give  his  name,  as  he 
might  be  still  more  cross  with  me,  especially  as 
he  does  not  come  too  well  out  of  this  story.  I  am 
one — in  fact,  the  principal  one — of  his  troupe; 
and  I  have  a  number  of  quite  remarkable  tricks 
and  the  capacity  to  perform  as  many  again  if  only 
my  master  would  think  it  worth  while  to  add  to 
his  list.  But  so  long  as  there  are  so  many  music- 
halls  where  his  present  performance  is  always  a 
novelty — and  there  are  so  many  that  he  could  be 
in  a  different  one  every  week  for  the  next  ten 
years  if  he  liked — why  should  he  worry  himself  to 
do  anything  fresh  ?    That  is  the  argument  he  uses, 

(55) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

not  being  a  real  artist  and  enthusiast,  as  I  am, 
and  as  is  one  of  my  friends  in  the  troupe  too. 
She,  however,  does  not  come  into  this  story. 

"I  don't  know  whether  you  know  anything 
about  music-halls,  but  it  is  my  privilege  to  be  in 
one  and  perhaps  two  every  day,  entertaining  tired 
people,  and  the  custom  now  is,  if  any  striking 
news  of  the  war  arrives  during  the  evening,  for 
one  of  the  performers  to  announce  it.  Naturally, 
since  human  beings  like  being  prominent  and 
popular  as  much  as  dogs  do,  a  performer  is  very 
glad  when  it  falls  to  him  to  make  the  announce- 
ment. Applause  is  very  sweet  to  the  ear,  even 
if  it  is  provoked  merely  by  narrating  the  heroism 
of  others,  and  it  is  not  difficult  for  any  one  accus- 
tomed to  hear  it  to  associate  himself  with  the 
action  that  has  called  it  forth.  I  feel  that  I  am 
very  rambling  in  my  remarks,  but  my  point  is  that 
the  privilege  of  telling  the  audience  about  a  great 
deed  just  now  is  highly  prized,  and  a  performer 
who  is  foolish  enough  to  miss  the  chance  is  stupid 
indeed. 

"I  must  now  tell  you  that  my  master  is  not  the 
most  sensible  of  men.'  It  was  clever  of  him  to  get 
into  touch  with  so  able  an  animal  as  myself  and 
to  treat  me  so  sensibly  as  to  induce  me  to  stay 
with  him  and  work  for  him;  but  his  cleverness 
stops  there.  In  private  life  he  is  really  very  silly, 
spending  all  his  time  in  talking  and  drinking  with 
other  professionals,  and  boasting  of  the  successes 
he  has  had,  instead  of  learning  new  jokes  and 
allowing  me  to  do  new  tricks,  as  I  should  love  to. 
(56) 


The  Sinking  of  the  U  29 

"Well,  the  other  night,  just  as  we  were  going 
on,  some  one  brought  the  news  of  the  sinking  of 
the  U  29-  I  heard  it  distinctly,  but  my  master 
was  so  muzzy  and  preoccupied  that,  though  he 
pulled  himself  together  sufficiently  to  say  'Good 
business !'  in  reply,  he  did  nothing  else.  He  failed 
to  realise  what  a  chance  it  was  for  him  to  make  a 
hit  for  himself. 

"Look  at  the  situation.  On  the  one  hand  was 
the  audience,  longing  to  be  cheered  up  by  such  a 
piece  of  news,  and  on  the  other  a  stupid  performer 
too  fresh  from  a  neighbouring  bar  to  appreciate 
his  luck  in  having  the  opportunity  of  imparting 
it  and  bringing  down  the  house.  And  not  only 
that.  For  there  was  also  myself — a  keen  patri- 
otic British  dog  longing  to  tell  the  news,  but  unable 
to  make  all  these  blockheads  understand,  because 
with  all  their  boasted  human  knowledge  and  brains 
they  haven't  yet  learned  to  know  what  dogs  are 
talking  about.  The  result  was — would  you  be- 
lieve it? — my  master  began  his  ancient  patter  just 
as  if  nothing  had  happened.  I  tweaked  his  leg,  but 
in  vain.  I  snapped  at  him,  I  snarled  at  him,  to 
bring  him  to  his  senses ;  but  all  in  vain. 

"Then  I  took  the  thing  into  my  own  paws. 
I  ceased  to  pay  him  any  attention.  All  I  did  was 
to  stand  at  the  footlights  facing  the  house  and 
shout  out  to  the  audience  again  and  again,  'The 
U  29  has  been  sunk  with  all  hands !' 

"  'Come  here,  you  devil,'  said  my  master  under 
his  breath,  'and  behave,  or  I'll  give  you  the  biggest 
thrashing  you  ever  had.' 

(57) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"But  I  didn't  care.  I  remained  by  the  foot- 
lights, screaming  out,  'The  U  29  has  been  sunk 
with  all  hands!' 

"  'Mercy,  how  the  dog  barks !'  a  lady  in  a  box 
exclaimed.  Bark !  I  wasn't  barking.  I  was  dis- 
seminating the  glad  tidings. 

"  'Silence,  you  brute !'  my  master  cried,  and 
brought  down  his  little  whip  on  my  back. 

"But  I  still  kept  on.  'They  must  know  it,  they 
must  be  told!'  I  said  to  myself,  and  I  persisted 
with  the  news  until  at  last  the  stage-manager 
rang  down  the  curtain  and  our  turn  was  called  off. 
And  a  second  later  he  was  on  the  stage  himself, 
apologising  for  my  conduct  and  telling  the  audi- 
ence about  the  U  29;  and  in  their  excitement  they 
forgot  all  about  their  disappointment  at  not  seeing 
me  perform.     Their  applause  was  terrific. 

"  'See  what  you  missed  by  your  folly,'  I  said  to 
my  master.  But  he  paid  no  attention,  he  merely 
set  about  giving  me  the  thrashing  of  my  life. 

"Sirius,  how  I  ache!" 


(58) 


THE  REAL  HERO  OF  THE  WAR 

THERE  is  an  impression  about  that  among 
the  candidates  for  the  position  of  real  hero 
of  the  war  King  Albert  might  have  a  chance;  or 
even  Lord  Kitchener  or  General  Joffre.  But  I 
have  my  doubts,  after  all  that  I  have  heard — and 
I  love  to  hear  it  and  to  watch  the  different  ways 
in  which  the  tellers  narrate  it:  some  so  frankly 
proud;  some  just  as  proud,  but  trying  to  conceal 
their  pride.  After  all  that  I  have  heard  I  am 
bound  to  believe  that  for  the  real  hero  of  the  war 
we  must  look  elsewhere. 

Not  much  is  printed  of  this  young  fellow's 
deeds;  one  gets  them  chiefly  by  word  of  mouth 
and  very  largely  in  club  smoking-rooms.  In  rail- 
way carriages  too,  and  at  dinner-parties.  These 
are  the  places  where  the  champions  most  do  con- 
gregate and  hold  forth.  And  from  what  they  say 
he  is  a  most  gallant  and  worthy  warrior.  Versa- 
tile as  well,  for  not  only  does  he  fight  and  bag 
his  Boche,  but  he  is  wounded  and  imprisoned. 
Sometimes  he  rides  a  motor-cycle,  sometimes  he 
flies,  sometimes  he  has  charge  of  a  gun,  some- 
times he  is  doing  Red  Cross  work,  and  again  he 
helps  to  bring  up  the  supplies  with  the  A.S.C. 
He  has  been  everywhere.  He  was  at  Mons  and 
he  was  at  Cambrai.     He  marched  into  Ypres,  and 

(59) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

is  rather  angry  when  the  Germans  are  blamed  for 
shelling  the  Cloth  Hall,  because  he  tells  you  that 
there  was  a  big  French  gun  firmly  established  be- 
hind it,  and  only  by  shelling  the  building  could 
the  enemy  hope  to  destroy  that  dangerous  piece 
of  ordnance.  He  was  at  Loos  and  Hooge.  He  saw 
something  of  the  bombardment  of  Rheims,  and  he 
watched  the  monitors  at  work  on  the  Belgian  coast. 
His  story  of  the  landing  at  Suvla  Bay  is  a  marvel ; 
and  even  more  graphic  is  his  description  of  the 
great  evacuation. 

And  not  only  does  he  perform  some  of  the 
best  deeds  and  often  get  rewarded  for  them,  but 
he   is   a   good   medium   for   news    too.      He   hears 

things.     He's  somewhere  about  when  General 

says    something    of    the    deepest    significance    to 

General  .      He  knows   men   high   up   in   the 

War  Office.  He  refers  lightly  to  K.,  and  staff 
officers  apparently  tell  him  many  of  their  secrets. 
He  often  has  the  latest  Admiralty  news  too,  and 
it  was  he  who  had  the  luck  to  be  in  the  passage 
when  Lord  Fisher  and  another  Sea  Lord  executed 
their  historic  waltz  on  the  receipt  of  the  news  of 
Sturdee's  coup.  No  one  can  give  you  so  high  a 
figure  of  the  number  of  submarines  we  have 
bagged.  Sometimes,  I  admit,  his  information  must 
be  taken  with  salt;  but  denials  do  not  much  abash 
him.  He  was  prepared  for  them  and  can  explain 
them. 

His  letters  are  interesting  and  cover  a  vast 
amount  of  ground.  They  are  sometimes  very 
well  written,  and  in  differing  moods  he  abuses 
(60) 


The  Real  Hero  of  the  War 

the  enemy  and  pities  them.  He  never  grumbles 
but  is  sometimes  preplexed  by  overwork  in  the 
trenches.  He  hates  having  to  stand  long  in  water, 
and  has  lost  more  comrades  than  he  likes  to 
think  about.  One  day  he  was  quite  close  to  Gen- 
eral Joffre,  whom  he  regards  as  a  sagacious  leader, 
cautious  and  far-sighted;  another  day  he  was 
close  to  Sir  Douglas  Haig,  and  nothing  could 
exceed  the  confidence  which  his  appearance  kin- 
dled in  him.  He  is  a  little  inconsistent  now  and 
then,  and  one  day  says  he  has  more  cigarettes  than 
he  can  smoke,  and  the  next  bewails  the  steady 
shortage  of  tobacco.  As  to  his  heroic  actions  he  is 
reticent;  but  we  know  that  many  of  the  finest 
deeds  have  been  performed  by  him.  He  has  saved 
lives  and  guns  and  has  won  the  D.S.O.  and  even 
the  V.C. 

And  what  is  his  name?  Well,  I  can't  say  what 
his  name  is,  because  it  is  not  always  the  same; 
but  I  can  tell  you  how  he  is  always  described  by 
those  who  relate  his  adventures,  his  prowess,  his 
news,  his  suspicions,  and  his  fears.  He  is  always 
referred  to  as  "My  son." 

"My  son,"  when  all  is  said,  is  the  real  hero  of 
the  war. 


(61) 


VARIOUS    ESSAYS 
OF  BAEEHEADEDNESS 

THE  motto  on  the  play-bill  of  a  recent  comedy 
stated  that  kings  and  queens  have  five  fingers 
on  each  hand,  take  their  meals  regularly,  and  are, 
in  short,  the  same  as  other  people.  But  it  is  not 
true.  No  amount  of  such  assurance  will  make 
kings  the  same  as  other  people,  because  they  are 
not.  And  the  reason  they  are  not  the  same  is 
that  they  are  different  I  have  just  seen  some  of 
the  difference. 

I  was  leaving  a  London  terminus,  and,  being 
with  an  invalid,  I  was  travelling  in  a  reserved 
compartment.  Under  the  influence  of  well-directed 
silver  bullets,  porters  had  been  skipping  about  in 
ecstasies  of  servility,  and  I  was  beginning  to  think 
myself  almost  one  of  the  governing  classes,  when 
I  observed  two  stationmaster  persons  in  frock- 
coats  and  tall  hats  take  their  stand  expectantly 
just  by  our  carriage  window;  and  one  of  our  serfs 
came  back  importantly  to  inform  us  that  a  certain 
member  of  the  royal  house  of  England  was  trav- 
elling by  the  same  train,  and,  in  fact,  would  gra- 
ciously occupy  the  very  next  compartment. 
Unhappily,  however,  this  compartment  was  not 
on  the  engine  side  of  ours,  but  on  the  other,  so 
(62) 


Of  Bareheadedness 

that  although  the  presence  of  a  traveller  so  august 
guaranteed  a  certain  measure  of  safety,  it  could 
not  absolutely  eliminate  risk  for  ourselves  in  the 
event  of  a  collision,  as  it  would,  of  course,  have 
done  had  the  salt  of  the  earth  been  nearer  the 
engine  than  we.  Our  assurance  was  limited  to  the 
knowledge  that  if  a  collision  should  occur  its 
force  would  expend  itself  by  the  time  our  com- 
partment was  reached.  We  should  be  the  ulti- 
mate victims.  None  the  less  it  was  comforting  to 
be  so  near  the  Rose.  Not  the  Rose  itself,  I  must 
admit;  nor  even  the  Rose's  consort.  That  much 
I  may  say,  but  beyond  that  I  do  not  intend  to 
divulge  anything,  merely  remarking  that  though 
not  a  sovereign  herself,  there  would  be  a  different 
Kaiser  in  one  country  and  a  different  queen  in 
another  had  the  lady  who  was  about  to  take  her 
seat  in  the  next  compartment  possessed  neither 
nephew  nor  daughter. 

Well,  suddenly  a  magnificent  motor-cai* — so 
long  and  silent  and  luxurious  that  I  marvelled  at 
its  occupants  ever  exchanging  its  warmth  and 
security  for  a  draughty  terminus  and  a  noisy  rail- 
way train — drew  up  opposite  our  windows,  and  in 
a  flash  all  head-gear  was  off — the  two  station- 
master  persons'  tall  hats,  the  chauffeur's  and  the 
footman's  caps,  and  the  bowler  of  the  tall  defer- 
ential aristocratic  gentleman  who  emerged  from  the 
car  and  helped  the  royal  lady  and  her  companion 
to  alight.  With  the  exception  of  the  chauffeur 
and  the  footman,  all,  I  may  note,  were  partly  bald. 
Then  came  a  blossoming  of  courtesies  on  the  part 

(63) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

of  the  officials  and  acknowledgment  of  them  by 
the  visitors;  nods  and  becks  and  wreathed  smiles 
were  exchanged;  hands  were  even  shaken;  the 
royalty  and  her  friend  were  ushered  to  their  seats ; 
the  tall  gentleman-in-waiting,  who  combined  with 
the  tactful  aloofness  of  an  undertaker  the  fluent 
ease  of  a  diplomat  and  the  authority  of  a  com- 
mander, said  a  word  or  two  to  the  railway  repre- 
sentatives with  a  gay  laugh,  and  disappeared  into 
his  own  compartment,  where  doubtless  he  would 
kindle  an  expensive  cigar;  final  salutations;  and 
the  train  started,  and  heads  once  more  were  cov- 
ered. Never  had  I  occupied  a  private  box  so  near 
the  stage  before. 

And  at  our  destination,  which,  as  it  chanced,  was 
theirs  too,  we  had  all  the  comedy  again,  only  here, 
in  the  provinces,  there  was  a  touch  of  gaucherie  to 
help  it.  The  Mayor  was  on  the  platform,  hat  in 
hand;  near  him  were  the  chief  constable  and  the 
stationmaster;  and  all  were  already  bareheaded 
when  the  train  drew  up,  and  had  perhaps  been 
so  for  hours — the  engine-driver  being  carefully 
instructed  to  operate  his  brakes  to  bring  the  royal 
compartment  (and  incidentally  ours)  abreast  the 
welcome.  All  the  members  of  the  reception  com- 
mittee were  again  either  bald  or  partly  bald,  so 
that  I  began  to  wonder  if  royalty's  eyes  ever 
alight  upon  a  well-afforested  head  at  all;  and  all 
received  a  gracious  hand-shake.  And  again,  hav- 
ing swiftly  alighted  from  the  train,  here  was  the 
tall  gentleman-in-waiting,  hat  in  hand,  a  little 
rebuking  to  the  Mayor  by  reason  of  his  bowler, 
(64) 


Of  Bareheadedness 

while  his  worship  still  clung  to  the  steadily  obso- 
lescing  topper.  And  so,  in  another  storm  of 
courtesies  and  acknowledgments,  the  royal  lady 
drove  off  in  the  Mayor's  carriage,  and,  a  normal 
atmosphere  having  asserted  itself,  we  plebeians 
were  at  liberty  to  descend. 

But  how  can  any  dramatist  pretend  that  kings 
and  queens  are  the  same  as  other  people?  And 
how,  indeed,  could  they  be  the  same,  even  if  they 
wished,  with  all  this  ceremony  of  bare  heads  to 
set  them  back  again  in  their  place?  For  no  one 
could  stand  it.  In  a  very  few  days'  time  any 
man's  character  would,  if  all  heads  were  bared 
directly  he  appeared,  show  signs  of  change.  If 
one  would  remain  ordinary  and  like  unto  the 
majority  of  one's  kind,  one  must  now  and  then  be 
in  the  presence  of  a  hat.  To  see  nothing  but 
scalps,  whether  or  not  covered  with  hair,  indoors 
and  out,  cannot  but  make  life  artificial  and  rarefied. 
People  in  this  position,  with  such  an  unvaried 
prospect,  can  never  be  like  anybody  else,  no  mat- 
ter how  regularly  they  take  their  meals  or  how 
normal  their  hands  may  be. 


(65) 


OF   SILVER   PAPER 

OPENING  a  new  box  of  cigarettes  this  morn- 
ing, I  came  upon  the  usual  piece  of  silver 
paper.  But  I  did  not  as  usual  disregard  it,  but 
held  it  in  my  hand,  examining  it  in  a  kind  of  won- 
der for  some  minutes,  and  asking  myself  why  such 
beautiful  stuff  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  tobac- 
conists in  such  profusion,  how  it  was  made,  how 
it  could  be  so  cheap,  and  so  forth.  And  I  then 
shed  some  dozens  of  years  from  my  shoulders  by 
wrapping  a  penny  in  it  and,  by  infinite  smooth- 
ings  with  the  back  of  a  finger-nail,  transmuting 
that  coin  into  a  lustrous  half-crown — as  I  used 
to  do  when  the  world  was  young  and  silver  paper 
a  treasured  rarity.  And,  having  finished  playing 
with  it,  I  came  back  to  the  question,  How  is  silver 
paper  made?  and  from  that  to  the  question,  How 
are  most  things  made?  and  so  to  a  state  of  stupor 
occasioned  by  the  realisation  of  my  abysmal  igno- 
rance. For  I  have  no  notion  how  silver  paper  is 
made,  and  I  am  sufficiently  bold  and  sceptical 
to  doubt  too  if  the  Swiss  Family  Robinson  could 
have  made  it,  to  save  their  lives. 

What  would  one  first  look  for  if  one  were  told, 

out  of  a  clear  sky,  to  make  some  silver  paper? 

Obviously  not  paper,  for  there  is  no  paper  about 

it;   and   obviously  not   silver,   for   if   silver  came 

(66) 


Of  Silver  Paper 

into  its  preparation  tobacconists  and  chocolate 
manufacturers  could  not  throw  it  about  as  they 
do.  Thus  it  is  borne  in  upon  me,  and  I  recognise 
the  verity  with  profound  sadness,  that,  heir  of 
the  ages  as  I  am,  I  am  as  ignorant  of  the  making 
of  silver  paper  as  though  I  were  a  South  Sea 
savage.  Not  only  am  I  at  a  loss  as  to  its  prepa- 
ration, but  also  as  to  what  kind  of  people  make 
it;  where  their  factories  are;  what  they  call  them- 
selves. It  may  be  a  by-product  of  something  else; 
it  may  be  a  business  alone.  Boys  at  Eton  may  be 
the  sons  of  silver-paper  makers  or  they  may  not. 
I  don't  know,  nor  do  I  know  whether  they  would 
mention  the  source  of  their  fathers'  wealth  or 
conceal  it. 

And  I  am  equally  ignorant  as  to  the  origin  of 
thousands  of  other  things  which  I  fancy  one  ought 
to  know.  Looking  round  the  room,  my  eyes  alight 
on  one  thing  after  another.  Colour  printing,  for 
example — how  would  one  ab  initio,  set  about  that? 
An  ordinary  printing  press  I  could  see  myself 
laboriously  building  up,  with  some  rude  success; 
but  how  do  they  take  a  Royal  Academy  picture, 
such  as  that  on  the  wall  above  me,  and  trans- 
late it  into  mechanical  reproduction?  I  have  no 
notion  beyond  the  vaguest.  I  know  that  photog- 
raphy comes  in,  and  that  three  colours  provide  all 
the  necessary  tints  and  gradations;  but  how,  I 
know  not.  And  glass?  What  is  the  first  step  in 
the  making  of  glass — that  most  mysterious  of  all 
substances:  a  great  sheet  of  hard  nothingness 
through   which  at  this   moment   I    watch   a   regi- 

(67) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

ment  of  soldiers  marching  by?  Could  Robinson 
Crusoe  have  had  glass?  I  feel  convinced  that  he 
could  not.  Pens  and  ink,  yes ;  and  some  substitute 
for  paper  (so  long  as  it  was  not  silver  paper),  yes; 
but  never  glass.  Even  such  an  ordinary  matter  as 
soap  baffles  me.  I  know  that  fat  goes  to  its  making, 
but  I  know  also  that,  normally,  fat  rubbed  on  the 
hands  makes  them  not  clean  but  peculiarly  beastly. 
How,  then,  does  soap  get  its  cleansing  properties? 
I  have  no  notion.  And  I  am  considered  by  those 
who  meet  me  as  not  wholly  an  uninstructed  man. 

I  look  through  my  pockets.  Money — yes,  one 
could  make  some  kind  of  an  attempt  at  money, 
if  one  could  get  metal.  A  pencil? — yes,  that  is 
just  black  lead  cut  into  a  strip  and  enclosed  in 
wood:  easy.  A  knife? — not  so  simple,  but  obvi- 
ously possible,  because  all  castaways  make  things 
to  cut  with.  Even,  however,  if  I  could  not  make 
these  things,  I  know  where  they  are  made,  and 
more  or  less  how  they  are  made.  There  are  books 
to  tell  me  this.  What  no  book  knows  anything 
about  is  silver  paper.  Not  even  those  friends  of 
the  ignorant,  the  Encyclopaedists,  help  me.  Their 
books  lie  before  me,  but  all  their  million  pages 
are  silent  as  to  silver  paper;  or  if  they  do  men- 
tion it,  they  carefully  abstain  from  associating  the 
information  either  with  "paper"  or  "silver." 

Did  I,  I  ask  myself,  merely  go  to  the  wrong 
school,  or  are  all  schools  equally  taciturn  about 
this  kind  of  thing?  There  should  be  special  classes 
for  potential  castaways.  In  fact,  all  education 
that  does  not  fit  scholars  to  be,  one  day,  marooned, 
(68) 


Of  Silver  Paper 

is  defective:  I  would  go  as  far  as  to  say  that. 
The  height  of  mountains,  the  intricacies  of  algebra, 
the  length  of  rivers,  the  dates  of  kings,  matter 
nothing.  But  it  does  matter  that  one  should  know 
something  about  the  ordinary  daily  things  of  life, 
their  constituents  and  manufacture.  Suppose  the 
Government  appointed  me — as — after  all  the 
books  I  have  written,  with  their  show  of  informa- 
tion, it  might  easily  do,  at,  of  course,  an  insuffi- 
cient wage — to  be  the  companion  of  some  gentle 
inquisitive  barbarian  visiting  these  shores — some 
new  Prince  Lee  Boo — a  nice  kind  of  idiot  I  should 
look  when  he  began  to  fire  his  questions  at  me ! 
And  silver  paper  is  precisely  the  kind  of  glitter- 
ing attractive  stuff  with  which  he  would  begin. 


(69) 


OF   BEING   SOMEBODY   ELSE 

WALKING  along  Oxford  Street  the  other 
day,  I  was  aware  of  a  new  kind  of  cheap 
photographer's  into  which  people  were  pouring  as 
though  it  were  a  cinema  and  Mr.  Chaplin  were 
on  view.  And,  after  examining  the  specimen 
photographs  in  the  frame  by  the  door,  I  joined 
them,  not  for  the  purpose  of  facing  the  camera, 
but  to  observe  young  men  and  women  in  the  enter- 
taining pastime  of  escaping  from  the  fact,  or,  in 
other  words,  of  assuming  more  agreeable  identities 
than  their  own. 

For  the  novel  characteristic  of  this  studio  is 
that  for  the  trifling  sum  of  one  shilling  it  provides 
its  patrons  with  six  post-card  photographs  of  them- 
selves in  fancy  dress;  or,  as  a  leaflet  before  me 
states,  a  shade  too  losely  perhaps  for  Lindley 
Murray,  but  with  perfect  clarity,  beneath  a  list 
of  scores  of  costumes,  "Every  customer  ordering 
six  post  cards  for  Is.  are  entitled  to  use  which 
one  of  these  garments  they  think  best,  free  of 
charge."  What  a  privilege!  The  list  is  exhaus- 
tive. It  begins  with  Cowboys,  goes  on  to  Cow- 
girls, Indian  Chiefs,  Indian  Man,  Policeman, 
Pierrots,  Mexicans,  Nuns,  Whittington's  Cat, 
Quaker  Girls,  Jockeys,  Gent's  Evening  Suit,  Gip- 
sies, Highwaymen,  Priests,  John  Bull,  Cricketer, 
(70) 


Of  Being  Somebody  Else 

Old  Maid,  Harem  Skirt,  Father  Christmas,  French 
Soldier,  Aviator,  Costers,  Beefeaters,  Buckingham 
suit,  Nell  Gwynne,  Ladies'  Evening  Dress,  Ladies' 
Tights,  Boxer,  King,  Clown.  The  organisation  is 
perfect.  First  the  queue,  then  the  ticket,  then  the 
choice  of  costume  from  the  wardrobe  upstairs,  then 
the  donning  of  it  behind  a  screen,  performed  with 
infinite  giggling  when  it  is  masculine  and  the  wearer 
a  girl,  and  then  the  taking  of  the  photograph, 
which  I  can  assure  you  is  not  allowed  to  occupy 
more  than  a  few  seconds.  The  only  weak  spot 
in  the  concern  is  the  delay  in  developing  and 
printing,  for  the  client  has  to  wait  a  day  or  so 
for  the  glorious  results.  Still,  as  a  variation  upon 
the  drab  routine  of  twentieth-century  city  life,  not 
bad,  is  it? 

Judging  by  specimen  photographs  of  the  happy 
masqueraders,  the  cowboy  costume  stands  very  high 
in  favour  and  is  the  most  popular  male  dress  for 
young  women.  These  are  to  be  seen  also  in  many 
varieties  of  man's  attire,  even  to  that  of  the  police, 
looking  for  the  most  part  smirkingly  self-con- 
scious but  wholly  satisfied.  That  no  one  would 
ever  be  taken  in  as  to  their  sex  matters  nothing. 
A  wooden  horse  of  high  mettle,  obviously  by  a 
sire  and  dam  with  classic  sawdust  in  their  veins, 
lends  verisimilitude  to  the  cowboy  illusion,  and  it  is 
amusing  to  see  this  very  recognisable  noble  animal 
turning  up  again  and  again  in  the  pictures,  always 
under  perfect  control.  Some  of  the  new  Army 
doctors,  who  by  the  regulations  are  forced  to  wear 
spurs  but  have  never  spurred  anything  in   their 

(71) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

lives,  might,  by  the  way,  like  to  know  of  this 
placid  charger.  They  are  certain  to  wish  to  dis- 
tribute a  few  photographs  of  themselves. 

I  have  made  only  a  selection  from  the  costumes 
supplied.  I  might  have  added  many  more,  such 
as  naval  officers  and  Red  Cross  nurses,  both  of 
which,  I  am  told,  are  in  great  demand.  I  might, 
too,  have  mentioned  the  one  that,  after  the 
"Buckingham  suit"  (which  is  perhaps  merely  a 
euphemism  for  Court  dress),  is  most  perplexing 
to  me.  This  is  described  curtly  as  "draper." 
Who  on  earth  wants  to  spend  a  shilling  to  be 
photographed  as  a  draper  ?  And  what  is  a  draper's 
costume?  I  have  seen  thousands  of  drapers,  but 
they  did  not  differ  from  haberdashers,  tailors, 
chemists,  or  hotel  clerks.  Dan  Leno's  shopwalker 
is  probably  the  type  selected — poor  Dan  having 
also  confused  the  two  functions;  for  a  shopwalker 
only  walks  the  shop,  whereas  the  deathless  figure 
invented  by  that  ever-to-be-mourned  comedian 
acted  as  a  salesman  too. 

That  the  studio  is  a  success  was  inevitable,  and 
I  expect  a  great  crop  of  imitations.  For  it  is 
based  on  a  sound  knowledge  of  human  nature. 
Its  originators  know  life.  Every  one  who  has 
ever  been  a  child  remembers  the  excitement  of 
dressing  up.  No  game  without  dressing  up  in  it 
could  compare  with  one  in  which  a  father's  tall 
hat,  a  mother's  best  dress,  and  a  hairy  hearth-rug 
were  introduced;  and  very  few  of  us  ever  cease 
wholly  to  be  children.  As  the  poet  says,  "we 
are  but  children  of  a  larger  growth."  Through- 
(72) 


Of  Being  Somebody  Else 

out  life,  for  most  of  us,  to  be  somebody  else  is 
the  thing.  Well,  at  this  studio  young  people 
who  are  no  longer  children  play  at  being  children 
once  more.  After  working  all  day  as  clerks,  or 
shopmen,  or  typists,  or  domestic  servants,  how 
delightful  to  come  here  and  evade  destiny  by 
masquerading  as  highwaymen,  bush-rangers, 
Queens  of  the  Carnival,  Dreadnought  command- 
ers, and  George  the  Fifth  courtiers!  Better  still, 
how  tonic  to  the  self-esteem  to  be  taken  in  the  act 
of  complete  mastery  of  a  spirited  horse!  And 
what  pictures  to  send  away !  What  gallant  por- 
traiture for  the  provinces ! 

And — if  we  only  knew — what  an  invigoration  of 
ordinary  life  for  a  while !  I  like  to  think  that 
the  effect  upon  a  little  lodging-house  drudge  of 
having  been  a  Queen  of  the  Carnival  long  enough 
for  the  evidence  of  the  camera  (which  cannot 
lie)  to  be  secured,  cannot  wear  off  at  once.  Surely 
she  carries  her  head  a  shade  higher  in  conse- 
quence, and  bears  the  censure  of  her  mistress  with 
increased  fortitude?  I  hope  so:  I  believe  so. 
And  I  can  imagine  a  general  toning-up  of  self- 
esteem  in  many  a  shop-bound  youth  in  the  knowl- 
edge, abundantly  furnished  by  these  postcards, 
that  were  he  really  the  rightful  possessor  of  a 
naval  uniform  he  would  not  disgrace  it,  but  pursue 
the  Schmutzigehund,  or  whatever  German  cruiser 
came  his  way,  as  resolutely  and  effectively  as  Sir 
David  Beatty  himself;  and  this  being  so,  in  spite 
of  fate's  embargo,  he  does  not  do  his  less  illustrious 
work  any  the  worse.     And   many  a  seamstress 

(73) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

might  with  more  composure  view  her  inability  to 
be  smoothing  the  pillow  and  winning  the  heart  and 
hand  of  a  wounded  officer  if  her  eyes  could  now 
and  then  be  refreshed  by  furtive  peeps  at  herself 
in  a  Red  Cross  costume,  and  see  how  well  she 
would  look  as  a  nurse  (her  true  vocation)  if  only 
the  gods  were  kinder. 

The   strength  of   this   studio  is   that  in  it  the 
gods  can  be  made  kinder — momentarily. 


(74) 


OF   PERSONS  THAT   WE   ENVY 

THE  last  of  the  Commandments  (which  a  little 
American  boy  broke  so  easily  and  so  often 
that  he  thought  he  might  as  well  make  a  clean  job 
of  it  and  go  on  to  break  the  Eighth  also),  the 
Tenth  Commandment,  mercifully  omits  the  only 
thing  about  any  of  my  neighbours  that  I  have  ever 
coveted — their  characteristics — and  therefore  I 
assume  that  such  covetousness  is  innocent.  Cer- 
tainly I  can  hear  it  declaimed  by  even  the  most 
minatory  of  clerics  and  turn  no  hair.  To  begin 
with,  one's  neighbours  are  usually  so  eminently 
persons  to  be  avoided  that  the  very  idea  of  covet- 
ousness in  connexion  with  them  is  grotesque.  But 
reading  a  wider  meaning  into  the  word  "neigh- 
bour" than  it  now  has,  there  are  certain  people 
that  one  knows  who  possess  some  little  personal 
gift  or  charm  which  one  would  not  be  unwilling 
to  add  to  one's  own  repertory.  If  this  is  coveting, 
then  most  of  us  are  guilty;  but  I  have  the  con- 
viction that  coveting  must  have  meant  more  than 
merely  desiring,  must  in  Sinaitic  times  have  over- 
run into  theft,  to  figure  in  the  Decalogue  at  all. 
For  coveting  in  the  abstract  is  almost  as  natural 
as  breathing,  and  indeed  it  forms  a  basic  part  of 
at  any  rate  one  of  the  qualities  which  we  unite 
in  praising — ambition. 

(75) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

These  thoughts  were  suggested  to  me  last  eve- 
ning by  overhearing  the  sudden  heartfelt  exclama- 
tion of  a  young  woman,  a  total  stranger,  in  an  hotel 
chair  near  me,  in  one  of  those  uncomfortable 
focuses  of  self-consciousness  called  a  lounge.  "My 
word,  how  I  envy  her !"  she  said,  as  another  young 
woman  went  by,  on  her  way  from  the  table  d'hote; 
and  straightway  I  fell  to  wondering  if  there  was 
any  one  I  too  envied  and  what  envy  really  meant. 

An  essayist  recording  the  heroic  renunciation 
of  a  sailor  on  the  Formidable,  who,  himself  an 
orphan,  relinquished  cheerfully  his  right  to  a  seat 
in  one  of  the  boats  to  a  man  who  had  parents, 
and  releasing  his  hold  of  the  gunwale  was  lost 
in  the  angry  winter  sea,  expressed  a  wish  that  he 
might  in  similar  circumstances  behave  as  well: 
a  feeling  which,  with  whatever  misgivings,  we 
must  all  share.  But  that  is  admiration,  not  envy. 
No  one  wants  to  be  a  drowned  sailor,  however 
glorious  his  end.  No  one  envies  him.  We  envy 
the  living,  and,  I  suspect,  the  older  we  grow,  the 
fewer  of  the  living  do  we  subject  to  that  opera- 
tion. "How  I  wish  I  was  So-and-so !"  is  the  plaint 
of  the  young.  The  middle-aged  know  that  the 
only  thing  in  the  world  worth  being  is  oneself, 
even  with  all  oneself's  limitations.  But  even  the 
middle-aged  can  now  and  then  wish  for  a  modified 
transference  of  personality — for  the  grafting,  upon 
their  own  otherwise  unaltered  stock,  of  a  merit 
borrowed  from  this  idol  and  that.  "I  wish  I  had 
So-and-so's  easy  manners !"  we  say.  "I  wish  I 
could  tell  a  story  like  Blank!"  "I  wish  I  could 
(76) 


Of  Persons  That  We  Envy 

sing  as  Dash  does !"  "I  wish  I  had  Asterisk's 
memory  for  faces !"  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  should 
not  value  any  of  these  illicit  acquisitions  if  we 
had  them,  since  the  whole  structure  of  our  per- 
sonality would  be  disarranged  and  trouble  would 
ensue;  but  light-heartedly  we  may  express  the 
wish.  Well  for  us  that  no  fairy  is  listening! 
Well  for  us  that  our  heads,  when  we  speak  in  this 
idle  way,  bear  no  magic  caps ! 

Whom  do  you  most  envy?  would  be  a  good 
question  to  put  to  our  friends.  Putting  the  ques- 
tion to  myself,  I  find  that  the  one  creature  in  the 
world  whom  at  this  moment  I  most  envy — that  is 
to  say,  who  has  eminently  and  glitteringly  the 
characteristic  which  I  most  covet — is  the  lady  of 
whom  I  was  hearing  recently,  who  on  the  evening 
of  a  dinner-party  sought  her  room  to  dress,  and 
did  not  re-emerge.  Time  passed,  the  guests  ar- 
rived, every  one  was  present  but  the  hostess.  Peo- 
ple began  to  grow  nervous;  the  mauvais  quart 
d'heure  took  on  qualities  of  turpitude  beyond  bear- 
ing. At  last  the  missing  hostess  was  sought  for 
by  her  daughter,  and  found  comfortably  asleep  be- 
tween the  sheets.  Her  forgetful  mind,  oblivious 
of  the  social  engagement,  but  conscious  of  all  the 
suggestion  and  routine  of  retirement,  had  sent  her 
peacefully  to  bed.  Now,  there  is  a  person  whom 
I  envy  with  all  my  heart,  for  I  have  never  been 
able  to  do  an  absent-minded  thing  in  my  life,  and 
I  long  for  the  experience.  Existence  would  be- 
come simple  if  only  I  had  a  reputation  for  such 
vagaries.      As    it   is,    I    am   the   one    mechanical, 

(77) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

punctilious  person  in  my  circle.  I  am  the  one  who 
is  never  permitted  not  to  answer  a  letter,  forget 
an  appointment,  or  let  even  the  most  casual  under- 
taking be  neglected.  But  with  that  lady's  sublime 
gift  of  domestic  aphasia  I  could  really  have  a 
holiday  now  and  then. 


(78) 


OF   GOOD    ALE 

TWO  things  there  are  which,  however  rosily 
one  may  view  the  present,  are  never  as  good 
as  they  used  to  be.  One  is  acting,  and  the  other  is 
ale.  There  are  no  actors,  and  (more  particularly) 
no  actresses,  to  compare  with  those  of  our  youth; 
there  is  no  ale  such  as  we  used  to  drink  before 
we  knew  that  we  had  to  die.  And  we  cling  to 
both  convictions  the  more  tenaciously,  possibly, 
because  the  excellence  of  both  is  now  only  hear- 
say. Our  darling  actresses  (God  bless  them!) 
have  retired,  or  are  no  more;  the  ale  has  long  been 
drunken. 

In  particular  is  it  true  of  ale  that  it  is  not  so 
good  as  it  used  to  be.  That  ale  to-day  is  not 
what  it  was  is  notorious,  for  too  many  Chancellors 
of  the  Exchequer  have  been  at  it;  and  specific 
gravity  is  the  modern  brewer's  fetish;  and  a  thou- 
sand devices  for  superseding  his  intimate  personal 
attention  and  even  soUcitude  have  come  into  action. 
But  the  evidence  of  a  pleasant  book  which  lies 
open  beside  me  proves  that  as  far  back  as  the 
year  1750  ale  had  fallen  far  below  its  true  level, 
the  sole  cause  of  this  treatise  being  the  decadence 
that  had  come  upon  John  Barleycorn. 

The  book,  the  title  of  which  is  The  London  and 
County  Brewer,  7th  edition,  1758,  is  very  English, 
very   simple  and  enthusiastic,   and  wholly  intent 

(79) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

upon  reformation.  The  author's  name  is  withheld, 
but  he  is  described  as  "a  Person  formerly  con- 
cerned in  a  Publick  Brewhouse  in  London,  but  for 
Twenty  Years  past  has  resided  in  the  Country," 
and,  to  quote  his  own  words  from  the  preface: 
"By  the  Time  the  following  Treatise  is  read  over, 
and  thoroughly  considered,  I  doubt  not,  but  an 
ordinary  Capacity  will  be  in  some  degree  a  better 
Judge  of  good  and  bad  Malt-Liquors  as  a 
Drinker."  This  antithesis  of  an  ordinary  capacity 
and  a  drinker  is  pretty.  He  continues:  "And 
therefore  I  am  in  great  Hopes,  these  my  Efforts 
will  be  one  principal  Cause  of  the  reforming  our 
Malt-Liquors  in  most  Places;  and  that  more  pri- 
vate Families,  than  ever,  will  come  into  the  de- 
lightful and  profitable  Practice  of  Brewing  their 
own  Drinks."  Alas  for  that  ideal !  There  can  be 
but  few  private  brewhouses  left.  Beer  is  under  a 
cloud;  our  very  monarchs  drink  barley-water. 

Of  all  the  many  varieties  of  ale  commended  in 
this  genial  work,  the  author's  favourite  seems  to 
be  Devonshire  White  Ale.  It  was  invented  at  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century  at  or  near  Plym- 
outh, and  the  author's  "eager  Pen"  (as  he  describes 
it)  gives  it  such  a  character  as  we  now  associate 
not  with  alcohol  but  with  patent  medicines. 
"Those  who  are  not  too  far  gone  in  consumption" 
find  it  beneficial;  it  cures  colic  and  gravel;  and 
it  is  "the  best  Liquor  in  the  World  for  a  Wet 
Nurse  to  drink." 

The  modern  brewer  has  given  up  the  recom- 
mendation of  his  wares  as  the  handmaids  of 
(80) 


Of  Good  Ale 

iEsculapius.  But  of  old  beer  was  much  extolled 
in  this  way.  In  The  Unlettered  Muse,  a  rare 
volume  of  homely  verse  by  John  Hollamby,  miller, 
of  Hailsham,  in  Sussex,  published  in  1827,  I  find 
the  following  admirable  Bacchanalian  song  in 
praise  of  the  beer  brewed  by  Thomas  Gooche  of 
Norfolk,  who  was  brewing  at  Hailsham  at  that 
time.     Here  is  the  song: 

GOOCHE'S  STRONG  BEER 

"Fancy  it  Burgundy,  only  fancy  it,  and  'tis  worth  ten 
shillings  a  quart." 

O,  Gooche's  beer  your  heart  will  cheer, 

And  put  you  in  condition; 
The  man  that  will  but  drink  his  fill 

Has  need  of  no  physician. 

'Twill  fill  your  veins,  and  warm  your  brains, 

And  drive  out  melancholy; 
Your  nerves  'twill  brace,  and  paint  your  face, 

And  make  you  fat  and  jolly. 

The  foreigners  they  praise  their  wines 

('Tis  only  to  deceive  us) : 
"Would  they  come  here  and  taste  this  beer, 

I'm  sure  they'd  never  leave  us. 

The  meagre  French  their  thirst  would  quench, 
And  find  much  good  'twould  do  them; 

Keep  them  a  year  on  Gooche's  beer, 
Their  country  would  not  know  them. 

All  you  that  have  not  tasted  it 

I'd  have  you  set  about  it; 
No  man  with  pence  and  common-sense 

Would  ever  be  without  it. 

(81) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"The  meagre  French"  is  good.  It  takes  a  Hail- 
sham  miller  with  a  turn  for  verse  to  apply  such 
an  adjective  to  that  nation.  Had  he  travelled,  or 
even  read,  he  would  have  known  better — and 
worse.  For  truth  nearly  always  cuts  into  the  pic- 
turesque, and  injustice,  which  is  the  salt  of  inter- 
national lampoons,  dies  in  its  presence.  But  what 
is  there  in  the  air  of  Sussex  that  so  inspires  that 
county's  poets  to  the  praises  of  ale?  Mr.  Belloc 
must  turn  aside  from  strategy  for  a  moment  to 
answer  this. 

When  it  comes  to  fancy  beverages  my  own 
taste  inclines  to  Cock-Ale.  Of  this  exotic  cordial 
I  never  heard  before;  and  I  am  never  likely  to 
taste  it.  But  here  is  the  recipe,  for  the  curious: 
"Take  a  Cock  of  half  a  Year  old,  kill  him  and 
truss  him  well,  and  put  into  a  Cask  twelve  Gallons 
of  Ale,  to  which  add  four  Pounds  of  Raisins  of  the 
Sun  well  pick'd,  ston'd,  wash'd,  and  dry'd;  Dates 
sliced  Half  a  Pound;  Nutmegs  and  Mace  two 
Ounces.  Infuse  the  Dates  and  Spices  in  a  Quart 
of  Canary  twenty-four  Hours,  then  boil  the  Cock 
in  a  manner  to  a  Jelly,  till  a  Gallon  of  Water 
is  reduced  to  two  Quarts;  then  press  the  Body  of 
him  extremely  well,  and  put  the  Liquor  into  the 
Cask  where  the  Ale  is,  with  the  Spices  and  Fruit, 
adding  a  few  blades  of  Mace;  then  put  to  it  Half 
a  Pint  of  new  Ale  Yeast,  and  let  it  work  well  for  a 
Day,  and,  in  two  Days,  you  may  broach  it  for  Use ; 
or,  in  hot  Weather,  the  second  Day;  and  if  it 
proves  too  strong,  you  may  add  more  plain  Ale  to 
palliate  this  restorative  Drink,  which  contributes 
(82) 


Of  Good  Ale 

much  to  the  Invigorating  of  Nature."  That  sounds 
like  the  real  thing.  Will  no  one  invite  me  to  a 
dish  of  Cock- Ale? 

Alas,  the  efforts  of  the  gallant  author  of  this 
book  were  not  destined  to  be  long  successful. 
That  they  were  operative  for  a  score  of  years  we 
know,  for  see  what  brave  John  Nyren  said,  when, 
in  old  age,  he  was  speaking  of  the  becoming 
revels  of  his  youth  on  Broad  Halfpenny  Down 
during  the  great  cricket  matches  in  the  seventeen- 
seventies.  "The  ale,  too!"  he  exclaimed,  in  a 
famous  lyrical  passage,  "not  the  modern  horror 
under  the  same  name,  that  drives  as  many  men 
melancholy  mad  as  the  hypocrites  do;  not  the 
beastliness  of  these  days  that  will  make  a  fellow's 
inside  like  a  shaking  bog,  and  as  rotten;  but  bar- 
leycorn, such  as  would  put  the  souls  of  three 
butchers  into  one  weaver.  Ale  that  would  flare 
like  turpentine — genuine  Boniface!  This  immor- 
tal viand  (for  it  was  more  than  liquor)  was  vended 
at  twopence  per  pint.  The  immeasureable 
villainy  of  our  vintners  would,  with  their  march 
of  intellect  (if  ever  they  could  get  such  a  brewing), 
drive  a  pint  of  it  out  into  a  gallon."  That,  as  I 
say,  was  in  the  seventeen-seventies,  and  I  like  to 
attribute  the  excellence  of  the  Nappy  of  that  day 
to  the  powerful  although  alas !  fleeting  influence  of 
The  London  and  County  Brewer. 


(83) 


OF   THE  BEST   STORIES 

I  WAS  reading  the  other  day  that  that  most 
amusing  of  clerks  in  holy  orders,  who  writes 
Irish  farcical  stories  over  the  pseudonym:  "G.  A. 
Birmingham,"  but  is  known  to  the  angels  as  Canon 
Hannay,  has  given  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  best 
funny  thing  ever  said  is  Charles  Lamb's  reply  to 
the  doctor  who  recommended  him  to  take  a  walk 
on  an  empty  stomach.  "Whose?"  inquired  Lamb. 
That  certainly  is  among  the  best  of  the  comic 
remarks  of  the  world ;  but  why  does  Canon  Hannay 
put  it  down  to  Lamb?  All  my  life  I  have  been 
associating  it  with  another  humorous  clerk  in  holy 
orders  and  also  a  canon,  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith, 
and  it  is  to  be  found  in  every  collection  of  his 
good  sayings.  Canon  Hannay,  who  is  normally  so 
eager  to  give  the  Church  even  more  than  her 
due, — for  did  he  not  create  out  of  "J.  J."  the 
curate  a  super-magazine-hero,  blending  Sherlock 
Holmes,  Captain  Kettle,  and  Terence  Mulvaney 
in  one? — Canon  Hannay,  one  would  think,  would 
have  naturally  allotted  Sydney  Smith  everything. 
Moreover,  the  joke  is  more  in  Sydney  Smith's  way 
than  in  Lamb's;  not  because  Lamb  was  not  expert 
at  that  peculiar  variety  of  nonsense,  but  because 
Lamb  had  a  passion  for  walking,  and  rarely,  I 
should  say,  suffered  from  any  malady  needing  this 
(84) 


Of  the  Best  Stories 

particular  remedy;  whereas  the  witty  canon  was 
a  diner-out,  addicted  to  gout  and  other  table  afflic- 
tions, and  a  walk  on  an  empty  stomach  would 
probably  have  done  him  a  world  of  good. 

And  now  I  lay  aside  my  pen  for  a  few  moments 
in  order  to  wonder  what  my  own  favourite  story 
is,  and  have  the  usual  difficulty  in  remembering 
any  stories  at  all.  Searching  my  memory,  I  find 
that  Lamb  comes  up  first,  which  is  not  unnatural, 
for  in  the  stories  which  most  appeal  to  me  there 
must  be  irresponsibility  rather  than  malice.  Malice 
is  easier,  for  one  thing,  and  the  laughter  it  causes 
is  of  an  inferior  quality.  That  touch  of  gay  non- 
sense which  Lamb  had,  and  Sydney  Smith  had,  is 
worth  (to  me)  all  the  brilliant  bitternesses.  This 
time,  too,  it  is  authentic  Lamb,  and  not  Brum- 
magem. My  momentary  choice  is  Lamb's  reply  to 
the  reproach  of  his  India  House  superior,  "You 
always  come  late  to  the  office."  "Yes,  but  see 
how  early  I  leave!"  That  could  not  easily  be 
beaten. 

Lamb,  however,  did  not  consider  that  his  best 
thing.  We  have  it  on  evidence  that  he  thought 
his  not  too  kindly  remark  to  his  friend  Hume  on 
the  size  of  Hume's  family  his  best  joke;  but  I, 
for  one,  do  not  agree  with  him.  Hume,  it  seems, 
was  the  father  of  a  numerous  brood,  and  he  hap- 
pened once  to  be  so  ill-advised  as  to  mention  his 
paternal  achievement,  apparently  with  pride,  in 
Lamb's  presence.  "One  fool,"  quoted  Lamb, 
"makes  many."  Personally,  I  don't  much  esteem 
this  story,  not  only  because  it  is   a  score  off  a 

(85) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

simple  creature,  and  a  rather  too  facile  one  at 
that,  but  also  because  it  comes  into  the  category 
of  those  sayings  which  the  joker  must  himself 
have  reported,  or  which  the  recipient  of  the  witti- 
cism could  not  well  report  except  resentfully.  We 
can  imagine  the  auditor  of  the  priceless  reply, 
"But  see  how  early  I  leave,"  after  recovering 
from  the  stunned  condition  into  which  its  tre- 
mendous irrelevance  and  foolishness  knocked  him, 
hurrying  away  in  perplexity  to  report  it  in  all  its 
incredibleness  to  fellow-officials:  "What  on  earth 
do  you  think  that  that  mad  creature  Lamb  has 
just  said  to  me?"  and  so  on.  But  one  does  not 
see  Hume  hastening  round  to  spread  that  family 
joke.  Lamb,  or  another,  must  himself  have 
done  it. 

Similarly,  when  the  Austrian  journalist  Saphir, 
who  said  so  many  witty  things,  met  an  enemy 
in  a  narrow  passage,  and  on  the  enemy  remarking, 
"I'll  not  make  way  to  let  a  fool  pass,"  pressed 
himself  against  the  wall,  saying,  "But  I  will,"  it 
must  have  been  Saphir  who  took  the  glad  tidings 
round  Vienna.  A  man,  said  Lamb  (and  proved  it, 
too),  may  laugh  at  his  own  joke;  but  I  think  we 
always  rather  prefer  that  it  should  first  get  into 
currency  by  the  other  fellow's  agency. 

And  yet,  if  that  rule  were  strictly  followed  we 
should  lose  too  many  good  things,  for  your  true 
humourist  scatters  his  jewels  indiscriminately  and 
does  not  reserve  them  for  the  fitting  ear. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  (I  mean  not  the  explorer 
but  the  longest  knight)  has  pointed  out  that  the 
(86) 


Of  the  Best  Stories 

reason  why  we  have  comparatively  so  few  records 
of  Lamb's  jokes  is  that  he  made  them  to  simple 
people,  who  either  did  not  understand  how  good 
they  were,  or  were  not  in  the  way  of  quoting 
them.  As  a  friend  of  mine,  who  does  something 
in  a  waggish  line  himself,  remarked  sadly  to  me 
the  other  day:  "I  am  always  saying  the  right 
thing  to  the  wrong  people.  Some  one  asked  me 
the  other  day  if  I  had  known  William  Sharp. 
'No,'  I  said,  'but  I  once  met  Wilfrid  Blunt,'  and 
instead  of  laughing  my  friend  began  to  talk  seri- 
ously of  the  Sonnets  of  Proteus.  I  have  no  luck." 
The  fact  is  that  what  all  wits  need  is  a  Boswell. 
Without  a  Boswell  it  is  necessary,  if  they  are  to 
be  reported,  that  they  must  either  themselves 
publish  their  good  things  or  keep  on  repeating 
them  until  the  right  listener  hears  and  notes  them. 
Had  there  been  a  Boswell  for  Lamb.  .  .  .  But 
Lamb  could  not  have  endured  one. 

Having  reached  that  point  in  this  discursion, 
I  sallied  forth  to  the  haunts  of  men  to  collect 
other  opinions  as  to  the  best  story.  One  of  them 
at  once  gave  Sydney  Smith's  reply  to  the  little 
girl  who  was  stroking  the  tortoise's  shell,  "be- 
cause the  tortoise  liked  it."  "As  well  stroke  the 
dome  of  St.  Paul's,"  said  Sydney,  "to  please  the 
Dean  and  Chapter."  A  second  choice  shakes  me 
seriously  in  my  own  selection,  for  it  ranks  high 
indeed  among  the  great  anecdotes.  Sam  Lewis, 
the  money-lender,  was,  at  Monte  Carlo,  a  regular 
habitue  of  the  Casino.  One  day  he  bade  every 
one  farewell.     "I  shan't  see  you   for  a  fortnight 

(87) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

or  so,"  he  said;  "I'm  off  to  Rome."  "Rome?" 
they  inquired  in  astonishment.  "Yes.  I'm  told 
it's  wonderful."  Two  or  three  nights  later  he  was 
back  in  his  seat  at  the  gambling  table.  "But  what 
about  Rome?"  his  friends  asked.  "You  can  'ave 
Rome,"  said  Sam. 

A  third  offered  an  historic  dialogue  from  the 
Lobby.  It  seemed  that  an  M.P.,  whom  we  will 
call  X.,  somewhat  elevated  by  alcohol,  insulted 
another  M.P.,  whom  we  will  call  Y.,  as  he  passed 
through  that  sacred  apartment,  by  calling  him  "a 
fool."  Y.,  stopping,  said  severely  and  pity- 
ingly, "X.,  you're  drunk.  I  shall  take  no  notice 
of  what  you  say."  "I  know  I'm  drunk,"  replied 
X.,  "but  I  shall  be  all  right  to-morrow.  You're 
always  a  fool." 

Since  writing  the  last  paragraph  I  have  asked 
two  more  friends  for  their  favourite  stories.  One 
of  them  at  once  gave  me  Whistler's  comment  on 
reading  in  the  Reminiscences  of  W.  P.  Frith,  R.A., 
painter  of  "The  Derby  Day,"  that  as  a  youth  it 
was  a  toss-up  which  he  became:  an  auctioneer  or 
an  artist.  "He  must  have  tossed  up,"  said  Whistler. 
The  other  choice  was  American  and  more  cynical. 
A  man's  wife  had  died,  and  on  the  morning  of  the 
funeral  the  man  was  found  sitting  on  his  door- 
step whistling  gaily  as  he  whittled  a  stick.  One 
of  the  mourners  remonstrated.  It  was  most  un- 
seemly, he  pointed  out,  that  the  widower  should 
be  thus  employed  on  the  day  on  which  they  were 
bearing  to  her  last  resting-place  the  remains  of 
a  woman  so  beautiful  in  person  and  in  character — 
(88) 


Of  the  Best  Stories 

a  faithful  wife,  a  fond  mother,  an  inspiration  and 
model  to  the  neighbourhood.  "Don't  you  realise 
that  she  was  all  this?"  the  scandalised  guest  in- 
quired. "Oh  yes,"  said  the  husband,  "but — I 
didn't  like  her." 

And  now,  having  set  down  all  these  examples, 
I  remember  what  probably  is  the  best  good  thing 
of  all.  For,  as  every  one  knows,  there  is  some 
malign  fate  which  has  provided  that  one's  mem- 
ory shall  always  be  a  little  late  when  the  best 
stories  are  being  swapped.  But  better  late  than 
never.  Dumas  pere,  it  may  not  be  generally 
known,  had  African  blood.  He  also  was  the  father 
(like  the  great  Sheridan)  of  a  witty  son.  Said 
Dumas  fils  one  day,  of  his  sublime  sire:  "My 
father  is  so  vain  and  ostentatious  that  he  is  capable 
of  riding  behind  his  own  carriage  to  persuade  peo- 
ple that  he  keeps  a  black  servant."  Having 
recalled  that  of  Dumas  fils,  here  is  the  best  story 
that  I  know  of  Dumas  pere.  Perhaps  it  is  as 
good  a  story  as  has  ever  been  told  of  any  egoist. 
Coming  away  from  dinner  at  a  house  noted  for  its 
dulness,  he  was  asked  by  some  one  if  he  had  not 
been  dreadfully  bored.  "I  should  have  been,"  he 
replied,  "if  I  hadn't  been  there." 

But  of  course  these  are  not  the  best  stories. 
Another  day's  memory  would  yield  far  better  ones. 


(89) 


OF   MONOCLES 

NO  man" — the  wife  of  one  of  our  most  famous 
novelists  was  speaking — "can  wear  a  single 
eyeglass  and  not  be  in  some  respects  a  fool." 
I  considered  for  a  while,  and  then  told  her 
that  I  thought  she  was  too  sweeping;  but  she 
would  not  give  way.  In  so  far  as  that  the  presence 
of  one  eye  only  with  a  window  to  it  imparts  a  ludi- 
crous appearance,  which  can  easily  be  consonant 
with  folly,  she  is  right;  but  there  are  exceptions. 
Take  the  case  of  Mr.  Dennis  Eadie  as  an  instance ; 
for  right  through  The  Man  Who  Stayed  at  Home 
he  suggested  folly  and  inoperativeness,  only  that 
his  final  triumph  of  cleverness  might  be  the  more 
complete.  The  lady  has,  however,  all  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  stage  on  her  side,  for  the  first  instinct 
of  any  actor  cast  for  the  part  of  a  Society  ass  is 
to  provide  himself  with  a  monocle. 

The  facial  distortions  and  contortions  necessary 
for  the  adjustment  of  the  monocle  have  indeed 
made  the  fortune  of  more  than  one  piece;  and 
the  implement  itself  has  done  much  for  others. 
Lord  Dundreary  I  never  saw,  but  I  take  it  that 
it  was  he,  or  rather  the  great  Sothern,  who  fixed 
the  place  of  the  eyeglass  in  dramatic  history, 
and  thus  in  the  mind  of  the  public.  Mr.  G.  P. 
Huntley  I  see  as  often  as  I  can  manage,  and  he 
(90) 


Of  Monocles 

it  is  who  is  chiefly  instrumental  in  keeping  the 
eyeglass  convention  alive  to-day.  Without  it  he 
would  be  only  half  as  delightful  as  he  always  is. 
None  the  less,  one  or  two  of  the  astutest  men  that 
I  know  wear  these  things,  and  the  late  Mr.  Joseph 
Chamberlain,  whatever  there  may  have  been 
against  him,  was  not  often  charged  with  foolish- 
ness. But  Mr.  Chamberlain  did  as  much  to  dignify 
the  monocle  as  other  men  have  done  to  make  it 
absurd. 

I  suppose  that  the  date  of  the  first  appear- 
ance of  the  monocle  is  known;  but  my  encyclo- 
paedia does  not  condescend  to  such  trifles.  Spec- 
tacles it  knows  all  about.  Spectacles,  it  seems, 
were  invented  either  by  Alessandro  di  Spina,  a 
monk  who  died  at  Pisa  in  1313,  or  Salvino  degli 
Amati,  who  died  in  Florence  four  years  later. 
Somehow  I  had  thought  of  the  Chinese,  always 
so  anticipatory  of  civilisation,  as  owning  the  credit 
for  this  invention;  but  it  is  pleasant  to  be  able 
to  place  it  with  our  Allies.  Having  stated  the  fact, 
however,  the  encyclopaedist,  in  the  usual  style  of 
such  imparters  of  information,  goes  on  to  cloud 
the  issue  and  bemuse  the  student  by  saying  that  an 
Arab  writer  of  the  eleventh  century  mentions 
them.  So  there  you  are!  But  nothing  of  the 
monocle. 

It  is,  I  suppose,  the  want  of  balance,  the  asym- 
metry of  the  single  eyeglass,  that  has  largely 
brought  it  under  suspicion;  and  also  the  circum- 
stance that  peculiarities  of  sight  are  not  much 
understood    by    the    people,    with    whom    ridicule 

(90 


Cloud  and  Silver 

starts.  If  working-men  ever  wore  single  eyeglasses 
we  should  hear  little  on  the  subject;  but  so  long 
as — as  at  present — a  navvy  in  a  monocle  would 
be  a  more  rare  and  amazing  phenomenon  than  a 
submarine  in  Pall  Mall,  so  long  will  the  unfor- 
tunate possessor  of  one  good  eye  and  one  defective 
one  be  a  figure  of  fun  to  the  masses.  A  man  may 
have  one  crutch,  or  one  arm  in  a  sling,  and  no  one 
laughs;  but  for  one  eye  only  to  be  defective  and 
therefore  glazed,  while  the  other  is  sound  and 
therefore  nude,  is  a  perpetual  and  gigantic  joke. 

Much  of  the  ridicule  caused  by  monocles  is 
based  also  on  scepticism.  I  believe  that  if  a 
plebiscite  could  be  taken  it  would  be  found  that 
the  vast  majority  of  people  are  convinced  that 
single  eyeglasses  are  an  affectation.  No  doubt 
that  is  so  in  many  cases.  No  doubt  many  a  youth 
wishing,  as  one  might  euphemistically  put  it,  to 
graduate  at  the  University  of  Barcelona,  has  paid 
as  much  attention  to  acquiring  the  art  of  wearing 
an  eyeglass  as  to  the  choice  of  socks  or  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  chevelure.  Many  an  older  man  coming 
whole-heartedly  into  the  classification  of  the  nov- 
elist's wife  quoted  above  has  also,  though  sound  of 
vision,  deliberately  selected  the  monocle  as  a  sym- 
bol of  doggishness  or  aristocracy.  Such  impostors, 
harmless  enough,  but  far  from  admirable,  civilisa- 
tion can  always  produce. 

Yet    a    residuum    of    genuine    monocle-wearers 

remains,   certain   representatives   of   which    I    am 

happy    to    number    among   my    friends.      Among 

these  is  one,  not  unconnected  with  literature,  who 

(92) 


Of  Monocles 

is  almost  blind  without  his  auxiliary.  To  him, 
however,  the  thing  is  a  matter  of  jest,  and  in  mo- 
ments of  levity  he  will  transfer  it  to  his  forehead, 
cheek,  or  even  the  tip  of  his  nose.  He  carries  no 
cord,  but  in  his  pockets  is  a  reserve  supply  of 
glasses,  so  that  if  one  falls  and  breaks  (as  always 
happens)  another  can  instantly  supply  its  place. 
And  once  I  knew  a  woman  who  wore  a  monocle; 
and  a  frightening  figure  she  was.  That  it  was 
necessary  was  proved  by  the  size  of  the  eye  seen 
through  it,  which  was  magnified  inordinately. 
Even  without  this  appurtenance  she  would  have 
been  uncannily  masculine,  and,  like  all  masculine 
women,  a  horror;  but  with  it  she  terrified  my 
youthful  life.  Whatever  may  be  said  for  the 
monocle,  one  thing  is  certain,  and  that  is  that  it  is 
not  woman's  wear. 


m 


OF  SLANG ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN 

I  WAS  hearing  the  other  day  of  a  famous  girls' 
school  where  slang  is  forbidden.  A  certain 
caprice,  however,  marks  the  embargo,  for  "top- 
ping" is  permitted  although  "ripping"  is  on  the 
black  list.  Personally  I  wish  that  at  all  schools 
slang  of  every  kind  was  strictly  discouraged,  for 
it  leads  to  the  avoidance  of  any  effort  to  be  pre- 
cise in  speech;  it  tends  to  slovenliness.  At  lunch 
recently,  for  example,  I  sat  next  a  young  woman, 
a  mother,  who  was  telling  me  of  her  experiences  in 
Venice.  I  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  that 
city  of  wonder.  "Topping,"  she  replied,  and  then 
added,  thoughtfully,  "Topping."  Now  I  did  not 
expect  her  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  the  charms  of 
Venice  and  to  give  me  an  analysis  of  her  many 
emotions  on  first  seeing  them,  but  I  confess  that 
I  was  looking  for  something  a  little  more  descrip- 
tive than  the  word  she  selected.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Venice  is  topping,  but  then  so  is  the 
cooking  at  the  Focus,  and  so  is  the  new  revue  at 
the  Futility,  and  so  is  the  dress  your  cousin  wore 
at  her  coming-out  dance,  and  so  is  Miss  Hieratica 
Bond's  new  novel. 

The  trouble   with   English   slang  is   that  it    is 
seldom  descriptive,  seldom  paints  pictures,  seldom 
contains   an  idea.      Probably  no  word   signifying 
(94) 


Of  Slang — English  and  American 

excellence  has  been  so  much  used  as  "ripping," 
but  how  does  it  come  to  mean  that?  "Topping" 
one  can  derive:  it  savours  of  the  top,  the  utmost, 
the  highest,  and  has  a  correlative  in  "top-hole." 
But  "ripping"?     No  one  could  derive  that. 

American  slang  is  interesting  because  it  applies 
and  illustrates.  One  recognises  its  meaning  in  a 
flash  of  light.  Somebody  once  contraverted  the 
statement  that  America  had  no  national  poetry, 
by  pointing  to  her  slang;  and  he  had  reason. 
American  slang  very  often  is  poetry,  or  an  admir- 
able substitute  for  it.  It  illuminates,  synthesises. 
In  England  we  should  fumble  for  hours  to  find  a 
swift  description  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge;  an  American 
looks  at  him  and  says  "high-brow,"  and  it  is  done. 
I  was  talking  a  little  while  ago  to  the  most  mer- 
curial and  quick-witted  comedian  on  our  stage, 
who  had  but  recently  returned  from  America. 
Having  made  an  allusion  which  I,  in  my  slowness, 
did  not  at  once  apprehend,  "Ha!"  he  said,  "you're 
on  a  freight  train !"  So  I  was.  In  other  words,  I 
was  behind  him  in  speed;  he  had  employed  a 
recent  American  phrase  to  explain  delay  in  the 
up-take.  Americans,  however,  being  very  thor- 
ough in  their  neologisms,  passengers  on  freight 
trains  have  their  chances  too;  and  what  I  ought  to 
have  replied,  while  puzzling  over  his  first  remark, 
was  this:  "Snow  again,  kid.  I  missed  your 
drift." 

Our  slang,  as  I  say,  seldom  describes.  Thus, 
it  is  rich  in  terms  suggestive  of  imbecility,  but 
only  one  has   any  descriptive  merit,  and  that  is 

(95) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"barmy,"  which  means,  literally,  frothy  at  the 
top,  yeasty.  "Dotty,"  "up  the  pole,"  "cracked," 
"potty,"  these  are  poor,  and  do  not  compare  with 
the  American  "batty"  (an  abbreviation  of  "bats 
in  the  belfry,"  which,  I  believe,  our  cousins  have 
recently  "side-tracked"  for  "dippy,"  an  inferior 
word.  English  slang  for  the  most  part  is  adopted 
from  whimsicality:  it  is  used  to  give  variety  to 
speech,  not  to  supply  word-pictures.  Fixed  rules 
determine  its  manufacture,  inversion  being  one  of 
the  most  common.  Thus,  a  boy  arriving  at  school 
with  the  name  of  White  would  probably  be  called 
Blacky  within  twenty-four  hours.  Another  rule 
is  association.  Thus  a  boy  whose  name  was  Mar- 
shall would  be  called  Snelgrove.  A  third  rule  is 
abbreviation,  which,  operating  upon  association, 
would  turn  Snelgrove  to  Snell  or  Snelly  in  a  week. 
And  that  would  be  the  end:  he  would  be  Snelly 
for  all  time  to  his  contemporaries. 

On  such  lines  does  most  English  slang  run — 
being  rather  a  supplementary  language  than  an 
alternative.  When  young  Oxford  suddenly  began 
to  substitute  "er"  for  the  ordinary  termination  of 
a  word,  it  was  not  making  slang  so  much  as  diver- 
sifying and  idiotising  conversation.  Thus  a  bed- 
maker  was  transformed  to  a  "bedder,"  breakfast  to 
"brekker,"  and  the  waste-paper  basket,  by  a  des- 
perate effort,  became  the  "wagger  pagger  bagger" 
— to  be  subsequently  surpassed  when  the  Prince  of 
Wales  arrived  at  Magdalen,  and  was  known  as  the 
"Pragger  Wagger":  he  who  only  a  short  time  be- 
fore, at  Osborne,  on  the  older  principle  of  inver- 
(96) 


Of  Slang — English  and  American 

sion,  had  been  called  "Sardines."  I  know  a  family 
lost  to  shame  which  substitutes  the  word  "horse" 
for  the  last  syllable  of  words,  and  thus  removes 
gravity;  and  another  even  more  lost  where  the 
letter  N  fitfully  takes  the  place  of  other  initial 
consonants,  so  that  "a  walk  in  the  garden"  be- 
comes "a  nalk  in  the  narden/'  also  with  risible 
results.  But  this  is  not  slang.  Slang  is  an  alter- 
native word  not  necessarily  descriptive  at  all  but 
as  a  rule  stronger  than  the  word  whose  place  it 
takes. 

Of  all  the  exasperating  forms  of  speech  in  which 
English  street  humourists  indulge,  there  is  none  so 
strange  as  rhyming  slang. 

"How's  the  bother  and  gawdfers?"  I  heard  a 
porter  in  Covent  Garden  ask,  by  way  of  after- 
thought, loudly  of  a  friend  from  whom  he  had  just 
parted.  "They're  all  right,"  was  the  shouted 
reply;  and  I  went  on  my  way  in  a  state  of  be- 
wilderment as  to  what  they  were  talking  about. 
What  was  a  bother  and  what  a  gawdfer?  I  could 
think  of  nothing  except  possibly  some  pet  animal, 
or  a  nickname  for  a  mutual  friend.  In  a  higher 
commercial  rank  they  might  have  been  gold  mines. 
Among  soldiers  they  would  have  been  officers.  I 
asked  a  few  acquaintances,  but  without  any  result, 
and  so  made  a  note  of  the  sentence  and  dismissed 
it  until  the  man  who  knows  should  arrive. 

In  course  of  time  I  found  him. 

"What  are  a  bother  and  a  gawdfer?"  I  asked. 

"A  wife  and  kid,  of  course,"  he  said.  ("Of 
course!"     Think  of  saying  "of  course"  there.) 

(97) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

I  looked  perplexed,  and  lie  added:  "Rhyming 
slang,  you  know.  Wife  is  'bother  and  strife.'  Kids 
are  'God  forbids.'  And  then,  according  to  the  rule, 
the  rhyming  word  is  eliminated  and  the  other  is 
the  only  one  used;"  and  we  settled  down  to  discuss 
this  curious  development  of  language  and  the  Lon- 
doner's mania  for  calling  nothing  by  its  right 
name. 

When  an  American  is  asked  a  question  for  which 
he  has  no  answer,  and  he  says,  "Search  me,"  he  is 
emphasising  in  a  striking  and  humorous  way  his 
total  lack  of  information  on  that  point.  When  he 
calls  a  very  strong  whisky  "Tangle-foot,"  he  indi- 
cates its  peculiar  properties  in  unmistakable 
fashion  in  the  briefest  possible  terms.  But  when 
a  Londoner  asks  another  after  his  "bother  and 
gawdfers,"  there  may  be  a  certain  asinine  funni- 
ness  in  the  remark,  but  there  is  neither  cleverness 
nor  colour.  He  might  as  well  have  said  "wife  and 
kids,"  whereas,  when  Americans  use  a  slang  word, 
it  is  because  it  is  better  than  the  other  word.  In 
American  slang  every  phrase,  like  the  advertise- 
ment pictures,  "tells  a  story." 

The  silliness  of  rhyming  slang  is  abysmal. 
Look  at  this  sentence:  "So  I  took  a  flounder  to 
the  pope,  laid  my  lump  on  the  weeping,  and  did 
a  plough."  That  is  quite  a  normal  remark  in  any 
public  bar.  It  means  that  the  speaker  went  home 
in  a  cab  and  was  quickly  asleep.  Why?  Because 
a  cab  is  a  flounder  and  dab;  one's  home  is  the 
Pope  of  Rome,  a  head  is  a  lump  of  lead,  a  pillow 
is  a  weeping  willow,  and  to  sleep  is  to  plough  the 
(98) 


Of  Slang — English  and  American 

deep.  A  certain  bibulous  and  quarrelsome  peer 
was  told  by  a  cabman  that  he  hadn't  been  "first 
for  a  bubble."  It  was  probably  only  too  true ;  but 
what  do  you  think  it  means?  It  meant  that  he 
hadn't  been  First  of  October  for  a  bubble  and 
squeak:  reduced  to  essentials,  sober  for  a  week. 

All  this  and  more  my  friend  told  me.  Here  are 
some  anatomical  terms.  The  face  is  the  Chevy, 
from  Chevy  Chase;  the  nose  is  /  suppose,  this 
being  one  of  the  cases  where  the  whole  phrase  is 
always  used;  the  brain  is  the  once  again,  short- 
ened to  once;  the  eye  is  a  mince,  from  mince  pie; 
the  hand  is  bag,  from  bag  of  sand;  the  arm  the 
false,  from  false  alarm.  A  certain  important  part 
of  one's  anatomy  is  the  Derby,  or  Derby  Kell, 
from  one  Derby  Kelly,  and  the  garment  that  covers 
it  is  the  Charlie,  from  Charlie  Prescott;  but  who 
these  heroes  were  I  have  not  discovered.  A  collar 
is  an  Oxford,  from  Oxford  scholar.  Nothing,  you 
see,  is  gained  by  rhyming  slang ;  no  saving  in  time ; 
and  often  indeed  the  slang  term  is  longer  than  the 
real  word,  as  in  tie,  which  is  all  me,  from  all  me 
eye,  and  hat,  which  is  this  and  that  in  full. 

Your  feet  are  your  plates  from  plates  of  meat; 
your  boots  are  your  daisies,  from  daisy  roots;  your 
teeth  are  your  Hampsteads,  from  a  north  London 
common;  money  is  don't  be,  from  don't  be  funny; 
the  fire  is  the  Anna,  from  Anna  Maria.  Whisky 
is  I'm  so,  from  I'm  so  frisky;  beer  is  pig's  ear  in 
full;  the  waiter  is  the  hot,  from  hot  pertater;  and 
so  forth. 

And   these   foolish   synonyms   are   really    used, 

(99) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

too,  as  you  will  find  out  with  the  greater  ease  if 
(as  I  did)  you  loiter  in  the  Dolly.  "In  the 
Dolly?"  you  ask.  Oh,  if  you  want  any  more  in- 
formation let  me  give  it:  in  the  Garden — Covent 
Garden,  from  Dolly  Varden. 

But  what  I  want  now  to  know  is  the  extent  of 
the  rhyming  vocabulary  and  the  process  by  which 
new  words  are  added  to  it.  Who  invents  them  and 
how  would  they  gain  currency?  That  question  my 
friend  could  not  answer. 


(100) 


OF  A  BONZER  AUSTRALIAN  POET 

AUSTRALIA  has  its  slang  too,  and  some  no- 
tion of  its  quality  may  be  obtained,  together 
with  a  certain  play  of  the  emotions,  from  a  little 
book  recently  published  in  Sydney  entitled  The 
Sentimental  Bloke,  by  C.  J.  Dennis,  which  has  so 
authentic  a  note  that  I  think  others  may  like  to 
know  of  it  too. 

The  Sentimental  Bloke  is  one  Bill,  lately  a  Mel- 
bourne crook,  but  now,  through  love  of  Doreen, 
on  the  straight.  The  brief  autobiography  set  out 
in  these  fourteen  poems  relates  his  loneliness,  his 
meeting  with  Doreen,  his  surrender  to  her  charm 
and  the  transfiguration  of  the  world  in  consequence 
(all  the  old  material,  you  see;  but  who  wants  any- 
thing new?),  a  lover's  quarrel,  the  visit  to  Doreen's 
mother,  the  visit  to  the  clergyman  who  is  to  tie 
the  knot,  the  tying  of  the  knot,  the  move  to  the 
country,  and  the  birth  of  a  son.  That  is  all.  But 
by  virtue  of  truth,  simplicity,  and  very  genuine 
feeling,  the  result,  although  the  story  is  related 
in  a  difficult  argot  which  usually  is  anything  but 
lovely,  is  convincing  and  often  almost  too  moving 
to  be  comfortable.  Indeed  I  know  for  a  certainty 
that  I  should  avoid  any  hall  where  these  poems 
were  being  recited,  not  because  I  should  not  like 
to  hear  them,  but  because  I  should  not  dare.    And 

(101) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

recited  they  ought  to  be:  an  entertainer  with  a 
sympathetic  voice  and  a  sense  of  drama  could  make 
his  own  and  Mr.  Dennis's  fortune  by  a  judicious 
handling  of  this  book. 

Bill  meets   his   fate  in  the  market  "inspecting 

brums    at    Steeny    Isaacs'    stall" a    brum    being 

any  piece  of  tawdry  finery  (from  Birmingham). 

'Er  name's  Doreen  .  .  .  Well,  spare  me  bloomin'  days! 

You  could  er  knocked  me  down  wiv  arf  a  brick! 
Yes,  me,  that  kids  meself  I  know  their  ways, 
An'  'as  a  name  for  smoogin'  in  our  click ! 

I  just  lines  up  an'  tips  the  saucy  wink. 

But  strike!     The  way  she  piled  on  dawg!     Yer'd  think 
A  bloke  was  givin'  back-chat  to  the  Queen  .  .  . 
'Er  name's  Doreen. 

Having  no  luck  with  Doreen  at  first,  he  resorts 
to  guile,  and  a  little  later  obtains  an  introduction. 
A  friend  having  led  her  up  to  him: 

"This  'ere's  Doreen,"  'e  sez.     I  sez  "Good  day." 
An',  bli'me,  I  'ad  nothin'  more  ter  say! 

I  couldn't  speak  a  word,  or  meet  'er  eye. 

Clean  done  me  block!    I  never  been  so  shy, 
Not  since  I  wus  a  tiny  little  cub, 
An'  run  the  rabbit  to  the  corner  pub — 

Wot  time  the  Summer  days  wus  dry  an'  'ot — 
Fer  my  ole  pot. 

Me!  that  'as  barracked  tarts,  an'  torked  an'  larft, 
An'  chucked  orf  at  'em  like  a  phonergraft ! 

Gorstrooth !     I  seemed  to  lose  me  pow'r  o'  speech. 

But  'er!     Oh,  strike  me  pink!    She  is  a  peach! 
(102) 


Of  a  Bonzer  Australian  Poet 

The  sweetest  in  the  barrer!     Spare  me  days, 
I  carn't  describe  that  diner's  winnin'  ways. 

Thewayshetorks!  'Erlips!  'Ereyes!  'Er  hair  I  .  .  . 
Oh,  gimme  air ! 

'Er  name's  Doreen.  .  .  .  An'  me — that  thort  I  knoo 

The  ways  uv  tarts,  an'  all  that  smoogin'  game ! 
An'  so  I  ort;  fer  ain't  I  known  a  few? 

Yet   some'ow  ...  I   dunno.     It  ain't  the  same. 

I  carn't  tell  wot  it  is;  but,  all  I  know, 
I've  dropped  me  bundle — an'  I'm  glad  it's  so. 

Fer  when  I  come  to  think  uv  wot  I  been  .  .  . 
'Er  name's  Doreen. 

Then  they  walk  out  together,  and  one  summer 
night  Bill  promises  her  to  renounce  his  old  com- 
panions : 

Fer  'er  sweet  sake  I've  gone  and  chucked  it  clean: 
The  pubs  and  schools  an'  all  that  leery  game. 
Fer  when  a  bloke  'as  come  to  know  Doreen, 

It  ain't  the  same. 
There's  'igher  things,  she  sez,  for  blokes  to  do, 
An'  I  am  'arf  believin'  that  it's  true. 

Yes,  'igher  things — that  wus  the  way  she  spoke; 

An'  when  she  looked  at  me  I  sorter  felt 
That  bosker  feelin'  that  comes  o'er  a  bloke, 

An'  makes  'im  melt; 
Makes  'im  all  'ot  to  maul  'er,  an'  to  shove 
'Is  arms  about  'er  .  .  .  Bli'me?  but  it's  love  I 

That's  wot  it  is.    An'  when  a  man  'as  grown 

Like  that  'e  gets  a  sorter  yearn  inside 
To  be  a  little  'ero  on  'is  own; 

An'  see  the  pride 
Glow  in  the  eyes  of  'er  'e  calls  'is  queen; 
An'  'ear  'er  say  'e  is  a  shine  champeen. 

(10f> 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"I  wish't  yeh  meant  it,"  I  can  'ear  'er  yet, 

My  bit  o'  fluff!     The  moon  was  shinin'  bright, 
Turnin'  the  waves  all  yeller  where  it  set — 

A  bonzer  night! 
The  sparklin'  sea  all  sorter  gold  an'  green; 
An'  on  the  pier  the  band — O,  'Ell!  .  .  .Doreen! 

Then  Doreen  insists  on  his  visiting  her  widowed 
mother,  and  after  many  postponements  he  does  so. 

I'd  pictered  some  stern  female  in  a  cap 
Wot  puts  the  fear  o'  Gawd  into  a  chap. 

An'  'ere  she  wus,  aweepin'  in  'er  tea 
An'  drippin'  moistcher  like  a  leaky  tap. 

Clobber?    Me  trosso,  'ead  to  foot,  wus  noo — 
Got   up   regardless,   fer  this  interview. 

Stiff  shirt,  a  Yankee  soot  split  up  the  back, 
A  tie  wiv  yeller  spots  an'  stripes  o'  blue. 

Me  cuffs  kep'  playin'  wiv  me  nervis  fears, 
Me  patent  leathers  nearly  brought  the  tears; 

An'  there  I  sits  wiv,  "Yes,  mum.    Thanks.    Indeed?" 
Me  stand-up  collar  sorin'  orf  me  ears. 

"Life's  'ard,"  she  sez,  an'  then  she  brightens  up. 
"Still,  we  'ave  alwus  'ad  our  bite  and  sup. 

Doreen's  been  sick  a  help;  she  'as  indeed. 
Some  more  tea,  Willy?    'Ave  another  cup." 

Willy!     O,  'Ell!     'Ere  wus  a  flamin'  pill! 
A  moniker  that  alwus  makes  me  ill. 

"If  it's  the  same  to  you,  mum,"  I  replies, 
"I  answer  quicker  to  the  name  of  Bill." 

An'  then  when  Mar-in-lor  an'  me  began 

To  tork  of  'ouse'old  things  an'  scheme  an'  plan, 

A  sudden  thort  fair  jolts  me  where  I  live: 
"These  is  my  wimmin  folk!    An'  I'm  a  man!" 
(104) 


Of  a  Bonzer  Australian  Poet 

It's  wot  they  calls  responsibility. 

All  of  a  'eap  that  feelin'  come  to  me; 

An'  somew'ere  in  me  'ead  I  seemed  to  feel 
A  sneakin'  sort  o'  wish  that  I  was  free. 

'Ere's  me  'oo  never  took  no  'eed  o'  life, 
Investin'  in  a  mar-in-lor  an'  wife: 

Some  one  to  battle  fer  besides  meself, 
Somethink  to  love  an'  shield   frum  care  and  strife. 

It  makes  yeh  solirn  when  yeh  come  to  think 

Wot  love   and   marridge  means.     Ar,   strike  me   pink! 

It  ain't  all  sighs  and  kisses.     It's  yer  life. 
An'  'ere's  me  tremblin'  on  the  bloomin'  brink. 

An'  as  I'm  moochin'  'omeward  frum  the  car 
A  suddin  notion  stops  me  wiv  a  jar — 

Wot  if  Doreen,  I  thinks,  should  grow  to  be 
A  fat  ole  weepin'  wilier  like  'er  Mar! 

O,  'struth!    It  won't  bear  thinkin'  of!     It's  crook! 
An'  I'm  a  mean,  unfeelin'  dawg  to  look 

At  things  like  that.     Doreen's  Doreen  to  me, 
The  sweetest  peach  on  w'ich  a  man  wus  shook. 

Love  is  a  gamble,  an'  there  ain't  no  certs. 
Some  day,  I  s'pose,  I'll  git  wise  to  the  skirts, 

An'  learn  to  take  the   bitter  wiv  the  sweet  .  .  . 
But,   strike  me   purple!     "Willy!"     That's   wot   'urts. 

Bill's    next    ordeal    is    the    interview    with    the 
parson: 

"Young  friend,"  'e  sez  .  .  .  Young  friend!    Well,  spare 
me  days! 
Yeh'd  think  I  wus  'is  own  white-'eaded  boy — 
The  queer  ole  finger,  wiv  'is  gentle  ways. 

"Young   friend,"   'e  sez,  "I  wish't  yeh  bofe  great 
joy." 

(105) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

The  langwidge  that  them  parson  blokes  imploy 
Fair  tickles  me.    The  way  'e  bleats  an'  brayt! 
"Young    friend,"    'e    sea. 

"Young  friend,"  'e  sez  .  .  .  Yes,  my  Doreen  an'  me 

We're  gettin'  hitched,  all  straight  an'  on  the  square, 

Fer  when  I  torked  about  the  registry — 

O,  'oly  wars !  yeh  should  'a  seen  'er  stare ; 
"The  registry?"  she  sez,  "I  wouldn't  dare! 

I  know  a  clergyman  we'll  go  an'  see"  .  .  . 
"Young    friend,"    'e   sez. 

Then  the  wedding,  at  which  Bill  is  bewildered 
by  the  parson's  questions: 

"An' — wilt — yeh — take — this — woman — fer — to — be — 
Yer — weddid — wife?"  .  .  .  O,  strike  me! 
Will  I  wot? 

Take  'er?    Doreen?    'E  stan's  there  arstin'  me! 
As  if  'e  thort  per'aps  I'd  rather  not! — 

All  goes  well  with  the  ceremony,  partly  through 
the  serenity  of  Doreen  and  partly  through  the 
support  of  Ginger  Mick,  the  best  man;  and  the 
bride  and  bridegroom  leave  for  a  honeymoon  be- 
side the  Bay,  jumping  into  the  train  at  the  last 
moment,  and  Bill  is  in  a  daze  of  rapture,  but 
comes  to  himself  on  hearing  the  cry  "Tickets, 
please" : 

You  could  'a'  outed  me  right  on  the  spot; 

I  wus  so  rattled  when  that  porter  spoke. 
Fer,  'struth!  them  tickets  I  'ad  fair  forgot! 

But  'e  jist  laughs,  an'  takes  it  fer  a  joke. 

"We  must  ixcuse,"  'e  sez,  "new-married  folk." 
An'  I  pays  up,  an'  grins,  an'  blushes  red  .  .  . 

(106) 


Of  a  Bonzer  Australian  Poet 

It  shows  'ow  married  life  improves  a  bloke: 
If  I'd  been  single  I'd  'a'  punched  'is  'ead ! 

Finally  the  son  is  born: 

Wait?  .  .  .  Gawd!  ...  I  never  knoo  what  waitin'  meant 
In  all  me  life,  till  that  day  I  was  sent 

To  loaf  around,  while  there  inside — Aw,  strike! 

I  couldn't  tell  yeh  wot  that  hour  was  like! 

Three  times  I  comes  to  listen  at  the  door; 
Three  times  I  drags  meself  away  once  more, 

'Arf  dead  wiv  fear;  'arf  filled  wiv  tremblin'  joy. 

An'  then  she  beckons  me,  an'  sez — "A  boy!" 

"A  boy!"  she  sez.     "An'  bofe  is  doin'  well!" 
I  drops  into  a  chair,  an'  jist  sez — '"Ell!" 

It  was  a  pray'r.     I  feels  bofe  crook  an'  glad  .  .  . 

An'  that's  the  strength  of  bein'  made  a  dad. 

She  looks  so  frail  at  first,  I  dursn't  stir. 
An'  then,  I  leans  across  an'  kisses  'er; 

An'  all  the  room  gits  sorter  blurred  an'  dim  .  .  . 

She  smiles  an'  moves  'er  'ead.    "Dear  lad !    Kiss  Mm." 

Near  smothered  in  a  ton  of  snowy  clothes, 
First  thing,  I  sees  a  bunch  o'  stubby  toes, 

Bald  'ead,  termater  face,  an'  two  big  eyes. 

"Look,  Kid,"  she  smiles  at  me.     "Ain't  'e  a  size?" 

'E  didn't  seem  no  sorter  size  to  me; 
But  yet  I  speak  no  lie  when  I  agree. 

"  'E  is,"  I  sez,  an'  smiles  back  at  Dcreen. 

"The  biggest  nipper  fer  'is  age  I've  seen." 

But  'struth!  'e  is  king-pin!     The  'ead  serang! 

I   mustn't  tramp  about,  or  talk  no  slang; 
I  mustn't  pinch  'is  nose,  or  make  a  face, 
I  mustn't — Strike!     'E  seems  to  own  the  place! 

(107) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

Cunnin'?    Yeh'd  think,  to  look  into  'is  eyes, 
'E  knoo  the  game  clean  thro';  'e  seems  that  wise. 
Wiv  'er  an'  nurse  'e  is  the  leadin'  man, 
An'  poor  ole  dad's  amongst  the  "also  ran." 

"Goog,  goo,"  he  sez,  an'  curls  'is  cunnin'  toes. 
Yeh'd  be  surprised,  the  'eaps  o'  things  'e  knows. 

I'll  swear  'e  tumbles  I'm  'is  father,  too; 

The  way  'e  squints  at  me,  and  sez  "Goog,  goo." 

I  think  we  ort  to  make  'im  something  great — 
A   bookie,   or   a   champeen   'eavy-weight: 

Some  callin'  that'll  give  Mm  room  to  spread. 

A  fool  could  see  'e's  got  a  clever  'ead. 

My  wife  an'  fam'ly!    Don't  it  sound  all  right! 

That's  wot   I  whispers  to  meself  at  night. 

Some  day,  I  s'pose,  I'll  learn  to  say  it  loud 
An'  careless;  kiddin'  that  I  don't  feel  proud. 

My  son!  ...  If  ther's  a  Gawd  'Oo's  leanin'  near 
To  watch  our  dilly  little  lives  down  'ere, 
'E  smiles,  I  guess,  if  'E's  a  lovin'  one — 
Smiles,  friendly-like,  to  'ear  them  words — My  son. 

These  few  extracts  prove  not  only  the  sound 
human  character  of  the  book:  touches  of  experi- 
ences common  to  millions  of  us;  but  they  show 
also  that  Mr.  Dennis  has  a  mastery  of  his  instru- 
ment. In  almost  no  stanza  could  prose  have  been 
more  direct,  and  yet  there  is  music  here  too,  a 
great  command  of  cadences  and  a  very  attractive 
use  of  repetition. 

And  now  a  word  as  to  Melbourne  slang,  for 
some  of  the  phrases  in  these  quotations  may  not 
quite  tell  their  own  story.  With  solicitude  for  his 
(108) 


Of  a  Bonzer  Australian  Poet 

reader  Mr.  Dennis  has  provided  a  very  full  glos- 
sary, from  which  one  gathers  that  many  slang 
words  are  common  to  England,  Australia,  and 
America.  But  Australia  has  her  own  too;  and 
none  of  them  quite  first-rate,  I  think.  I  take 
them  in  the  order  in  which  they  appear  above. 
"Smooging"  is  billing  and  cooing;  a  "click"  is  a 
clique  or  "push,"  "push"  meaning  crowd.  To  "pile 
on  dawg"  is  to  give  oneself  airs:  as  we  should  say, 
to  swank.  "Clean  done  me  block !"  means  flus- 
tered, lost  one's  head.  "Running  the  rabbit"  is 
fetching  drink.  "Old  pot"  is  old  man.  A  "cliner" 
is  an  unmarried  young  woman.  A  "tart,"  in  Mel- 
bourne, is  any  young  woman,  a  contraction  of 
"sweetheart."  To  "drop  your  bundle"  is  to  sur- 
render, to  give  up  hope.  "Leery"  is  vulgar,  low. 
"Bosher,"  "boshter,"  and  "bonzer"  are  adjectives 
signifying  superlative  excellence.  "Shine"  is  de- 
sirable, and  "champeen"  a  champion. 

We  now  come  to  the  tea-party.  "Clobber,"  of 
course,  is  clothes,  and  "moniker"  a  name:  the  East 
End  uses  both.  To  "get  wise  to  the  skirts"  is  to 
understand  women.  A  "finger"  is  an  eccentric  or 
amusing  person.  A  "king-pin"  is  a  leader.  "Dilly" 
means  foolish.     Everything  else,  I  think,  is  clear. 

So  far  I  have  mentioned  only  the  poems  which 
bear  upon  the  drama  of  Bill's  love  and  marriage. 
But  there  is  an  account  of  Day  fighting  Night, 
and,  later,  Night  fighting  Day,  in  the  manner  of 
the  prize  ring,  which  should  find  a  place  in  any 
anthology  devoted  to  that  rare  branch  of  literature 
— grotesque  in  poetry. 

(109) 


OF  THE  CRTJMMLES  CODE 

ODD  books  have  come  my  way  not  infrequently, 
although  never  often  enough ;  but  rarely  has 
a  more  curious  publication  strayed  into  my  hands 
than  the  Theatrical  Cipher  Code,  compiled  and 
published  at  Los  Angeles,  for  the  benefit  of  Mr. 
Crummies  when  he  is  in  a  hurry  and  in  economical 
mood.  Not  only  is  it  a  strange  compilation,  sup- 
plying a  very  curious  demand;  but  with  its  assist- 
ance, were  I  bold  enough  to  use  it,  which  I  am  not, 
I  could  be  surrounded,  as  quickly  as  an  Atlantic 
liner  could  bring  them,  by  an  army  of  American 
entertainers  of  every  description,  capable  of  work- 
ing every  kind  of  "stunt,"  singly  or  in  "teams." 
For  example,  were  I  to  cable  the  simple  word 
"Foliage,"  a  "Dutch-Irish  team  of  knockabouts" 
would  be  mine.  "Foliage"  has  never  meant  this 
to  me  before;  hitherto  it  has  meant  the  leaves  of 
trees  or  a  volume  of  poems  by  Leigh  Hunt;  but 
henceforward  it  will  mean  a  team  of  Dutch-Irish 
knockabouts,  because  that  is  what  this  invaluable 
volume  has  decreed. 

Similarly  the  word  "Follower"  means  "a  fun  pro- 
voker," and  should  therefore  be  a  good  deal  over- 
worked on  the  wire.  Indeed,  I  wonder  that  any 
other  word  is  ever  used.  A  "black  face  banjo 
player"  is  "Focus";  a  "clever  act"  is  "Fogless"; 
(110) 


Of  the  Crummies  Code 

a  contortionist  is  "Foist";  a  "genuine  gilt-edged 
hit"  is  "Fomalic";  a  "team  of  skirt  dancers 
able  to  sing"  is  "Forcible";  a  "pretty  girl"  is 
"Fume";  a  "Rube  act"  is  "Fungiform" — Rube 
meaning,  in  America,  rustic,  from  the  fact  that  out 
of  every  ten  yokels  nine  are  named  Reuben ;  "Fim- 
ble"  means  "desirable  chorus  girls,"  and  evidently 
is  not  used  often  enough ;  "Fixture"  means  "shape- 
ly and  good-looking";  "Fitfully"  means  "not  will- 
ing to  appear  in  tights";  "Dorsching"  is  "a  lead- 
ing lady  of  fine  reputation";  "Devolve"  means 
"all  our  people  must  be  ladies  and  gentlemen"; 
"Despond"  is  "an  actor  for  genteel  heavies";  and 
"Diagrede"  is  an  "encore  getter."  Let  there  be 
more  Diagredes,  say  I,  so  long  as  they  do  not  recite 
patriotic  poems  or  sing  sentimental  songs. 

Only  a  profound  philosopher  behind  the  scenes 
could  have  compiled  such  an  exhaustive  work  as 
this.  Nothing  has  been  forgotten,  no  contingency 
overlooked.  For  example,  what  do  you  think  "Ex- 
hume" means?  And  I  acquit  the  compiler  of  any 
sinister  humour  in  his  choice  of  words,  even  with 
the  case  of  "Fitfully,"  quoted  above,  to  make  one 
doubt  it.  "Exhume"  means  "child's  mother  must 
accompany,"  and  suggests  a  thousand  complications 
for  the  management;  and  "Excitement"  means 
"child's  mother  must  have  transportation  on  the 
road  and  other  expenses  paid."  At  the  end  of  most 
messages  the  cautious  manager  will  probably  add 
the  word  "Frantic,"  meaning  "do  not  want  those 
who  cannot  deliver  the  goods,"  or  he  may  perhaps 
say  "Forester,"  which  means   "acts  that  are   not 

(111) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

first-class,  and  as  represented,  will  be  closed  after 
the  first  performance." 

So  far  all  has  been  respectable.  Engagements 
have  not  necessarily  been  made,  but  there  has 
been  nothing  seamy.  The  code,  however,  takes  the 
whole  experience  of  the  stage  for  its  province. 
Thus  "Dropwise"  means  "no  contract  jumper 
wanted";  "Dross"  means  "no  drunkards  wanted"; 
"Drove"  means  "no  kickers  wanted,"  a  kicker  be- 
ing one  who  objects  to  do  things  outside  his  own 
department,  an  unwilling  performer;  "Drown" 
means  "no  mashers  wanted."  Some  managers  ap- 
parently do  not  mind  a  masher,  although  they  ob- 
ject to  a  kicker  and  can  put  up  with  a  drunkard 
so  long  as  he  does  not  jump  his  contract;  but  for 
the  more  fastidious  ones  who  do  not  want  any  of 
the  four  there  is  a  comprehensive  word,  "Drop- 
worm,"  which  means  "no  drunkards,  contract- 
jumpers,  kickers,  or  mashers  wanted."  Personally, 
I  should  use  "Dropworm"  every  time. 

The  section  entitled  "Agent  to  Manager  and 
Manager  to  Agent"  lets  a  flood  of  tragic  light  on 
touring  company  life.  Thus  "Bordering"  means 
"I  cannot  get  out  of  here  until  you  send  me  some 
money."  That  is  from  the  Agent  to  the  Manager; 
but  quite  obviously  from  Manager  to  Agent  is 
"Boring,"  which  means,  "If  you  do  not  sober  up 
at  once  will  discharge  you."  "Bosom"  also  must 
be  an  unpleasant  word  to  find  in  a  telegram: 
"Understand  you  are  drinking."  On  the  other 
hand,  what  does  a  Manager  say  when  he  receives  a 
(112) 


Of  the  Crummies  Code 

telegram  with  the  word  "Behalter" — "Our  trunks 
are  attached  for  hotel  bills"  ? 

This  little  book  and  the  demand  which  led  to 
its  supply  suggest  some  of  the  gigantic  ramifica- 
tions of  the  business  of  pleasure.  One  sees  the 
whole  feverish  world  of  entertainers  at  work  so 
actively  as  to  be  unable  to  write  any  of  its  mes- 
sages in  full.  The  human  side  of  it  all  is  brought 
out  very  vividly  by  this  code:  the  glimpses  of 
stranded  mummers  in  the  towns  where  they  did  not, 
as  stage  folk  say,  "click";  of  desperate  managers 
resorting  too  often  to  the  grape,  or  more  probably 
to  malt  and  rye ;  of  anxious  performers  waiting  for 
telegrams  that  are  to  seal  their  fate,  and  not  know- 
ing the  best  or  worst  until  it  has  been  de-coded; 
of  noisy  braggarts  in  bars  and  saloons  interrupting 
each  other  with  tales  of  personal  triumph  at  Mil- 
waukee, or  Duluth;  of  dejected  parties  in  cheap 
lodgings  hoping  for  better  days.  And  always  one 
comes  back  to  Crummies;  all  roads  lead  to  that 
masterly  creation.  "The  more  I  read  Dickens," 
said  a  great  writer  to  me  the  other  day,  "the  more 
convinced  I  am  that  the  Crummies  chapters  in 
Nicholas  Nichlehy  are  the  high-water  mark  of  his 
comic  genius."  I  share  this  opinion,  and  this 
Theatrical  Cipher  Code,  though  it  comes  from  Los 
Angeles,  whither  Mr.  Crummies  never  wandered, 
is  yet  full  of  his  brave  spirit. 


(113) 


OF  ACCURACY 

OPENING  recently  one  of  the  great  frivolous 
illustrated  weeklies:  those  papers  in  which, 
by  reading  from  left  to  right,  one  identifies  foot- 
light  favourites  and  peers'  second  sons — opening 
one  of  these,  I  came  upon  a  page  of  ladies  of  the 
chorus  with  whom  by  a  singular  chance  (for  I  am 
not  naturally  much  entangled  by  the  stage)  I  have 
some  slight  acquaintance.  For  circumstances  hav- 
ing conspired  to  lure  me  into  one  of  the  many  ave- 
nues which  lead  to  or  branch  from  the  Temple  of 
Thespis,  I  have  been  much  occupied  of  late  in 
the  composition  of  what  with  excessive  lenience 
Mr.  Crummies  calls  "lyrics."  By  this  term,  which 
to  me  has  always  meant  something  rather  sacred, 
a  joyful  or  passionate  expression  of  emotion  or 
ecstasy,  associated  with  such  names  as  Shake- 
speare and  Herrick,  Shelley  and  T.  E.  Brown, 
Campion  and  Lovelace,  Mr.  Crummies  means  any 
and  every  assemblage  of  words  set  to  music  and 
sung  by  young  ladies  to  audiences.  I  never  hear 
my  own  efforts  in  this  line  called  lyrics  without 
blushing;  but  "lyric"  being  the  accepted  phrase, 
just  as  "comedy,"  that  fine  term,  is  the  accepted 
phrase  for  all  forms  of  dialogue  intended  to  re- 
move gravity,  protest  is  foolish.  Those  who  are  so 
temerarious  as  to  accept  invitations  to  Rome  must 
(114) 


Of  Accuracy 

adopt  Rome's  vocabulary.  Looking  then  upon  the 
page  of  my  new  friends  in  the  frivolous  weekly 
illustrated  paper,  I  was  shocked  and  horrified  to 
discover  that  out  of  some  eighteen  there  portrayed, 
only  a  small  proportion  were  accurately  named. 
The  names  were  right,  but  they  were  associated 
with  the  wrong  photographs,  or,  if  you  prefer  it, 
the  photographs  were  right,  but  they  were  asso- 
ciated with  the  wrong  names. 

See  how  many  persons  that  careless  sub-editor 
has  disillusioned  by  his  happy-go-lucky  methods ! 
For  it  is  not  only  I,  who  do  not  really  matter,  but 
all  those  dainty-toed,  festivous  ladies  wrongly 
named  who  have  been  rendered  sceptical.  Rightly 
named,  they  would  have  been  plunged  into  de- 
light, together  with  their  relations,  their  friends, 
and  their  "boys" ;  but  as  it  is,  all  these  good  people 
are  now  profoundly  impressed  by  the  untrust- 
worthiness  of  the  weekly  illustrated  press,  and  in 
grave  doubt  as  to  the  bona  fides  of  the  daily  illus- 
trated press  too.  Imagine  the  feelings  of  the 
mother — or,  if  you  will  (for  you  are  so  desperately 
romantic)  the  fiance" — of  Miss  Trottie  Demury 
when  she  (or  he)  sees  under  the  picture  the  name 
of  Miss  Birdy  Dupois.  For  Miss  Demury  is  beau- 
tiful,   whereas    Miss    Dupois    And    then 

imagine  the  feelings  of  the  mother  or  fiance  of  Miss 
Dupois  on  finding  that  under  her  picture  is  the 
name  of  Miss  Cussie  Roe.     For  Miss  Dupois  is 

beautiful,  whereas  Miss  Roe And  so  it  goes 

on.     All  these  good  people  are,   I   say,  not  only 

(115) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

hurt,  disappointed,  and  surprised,  but  made  per- 
manently sceptical. 

There  is  too  much  unbelief  in  the  world  for  so 
many  of  us  thus  suddenly  to  augment  the  great 
army  of  doubt.  But  how  can  we  help  it?  Speak- 
ing personally,  this  regrettable  occurrence  has 
undermined  my  confidence  not  only  in  that  par- 
ticular number  of  the  paper  but  in  every  issue 
of  it  that  I  have  ever  seen.  If  on  the  only  occa- 
sion when  I  have  special  knowledge  I  am  thus 
deceived,  how  can  I  continue  to  believe  in  any 
other  statement?  All  the  thrills  imparted  to  me 
by  gazing  in  earlier  numbers  on  the  ivory  smile 
of  Miss  Dymphna  Dent  may  have  been  wasted. 
Those  too  numerous  languorous  half-lengths  were 
probably  not  Mile.  Lala  Ratmort  at  all.  Nor  am 
I  perhaps  acquainted  with  the  lineaments,  as  I 
thought  I  was,  of  either  Count  De  Spoons,  the 
famous  collector  of  old  silver,  or  Mrs.  Debosh- 
Tinker,  the  beautiful  and  popular  new  hostess. 
And  those  fine  young  fellows  who  figure  week  by 
week  in  the  melancholy  Roll  of  Honour — they 
may  be  misnamed  too.  So  you  see  what  it  is  to 
have  one's  faith  shattered. 

Has  any  reader  of  these  words,  I  wonder,  ever 
found  perfect  accuracy  in  the  newspaper  account 
of  any  event  of  which  he  himself  had  inside  knowl- 
edge? Something  always  is  wrong;  often,  many 
things  are  wrong.  Where,  then,  is  accuracy  to  be 
found?  Where  is  truth?  As  the  modern  Pilate 
might  ask,  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  truth  absolute? 
Outside  the  war  writings  of  certain  pacifists,  which 
(116) 


Of  Accuracy 

positively  crawl  with  it,  I  very  much  doubt  if 
there  is. 

My  experience  of  truth  is  that  it  is  granular 
and  not  solid;  a  kind  of  dust  or  powder.  Every 
one  of  us  has  some  grains  of  it;  but  some  have 
more  than  others,  and  some  esteem  the  material 
more  highly  than  others.  When  the  Psalmist  said 
"All  men  are  liars,"  he  was  understating  the  case; 
in  his  leisure  he  would  have  added,  "And  all  men 
are  truth-tellers."  It  is  almost  impossible  to  keep 
truth  out,  successfully  to  suppress  it.  It  crops 
up  everywhere,  even  in  the  most  unlikely  places. 
Deliberate  false  witness  can  be  full  of  it.  I  be- 
lieve that  every  written  sentence,  every  spoken 
sentence,  is  almost  bound  to  contain  a  grain  or  so, 
even  when  the  speaker  or  writer  is  trying  hard  to 
lie;  and  when  the  words  are  spoken  in  anger,  the 
grains  are  apt  to  be  numerous.  Human  nature 
is  so  complex  and  contradictory  that  practically 
everything  that  can  be  said  of  any  one  has  some 
truth  in  it.  But  when  it  comes  to  truth  absolute 
and  unqualified — not  Diogenes  with  a  searchlight 
such  as  they  flash  from  Hyde  Park  Corner  on  the 
vacant  skies  could  find  that. 

As  one  grows  older  one  grows  increasingly  sus- 
picious, not  only  of  other  people's  testimony,  but 
of  one's  own.  Memory  plays  strange  and  stranger 
tricks;  hearing  is  less  exact;  vision  becomes  defec- 
tive. Once  upon  a  time  I  would  state  a  thing 
with  emphasis,  and  stick  to  it.  Now  I  state  a 
thing  with  hesitancy,  and  when  the  question,  "Are 

(117) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

you  sure  about  that?"  is  put  to  me,  I  abandon  the 
position  instantly.  "No,"  I  say,  "I  am  not  sure. 
I  am  no  longer  sure  about  anything  in  the  world 
except  that  death  some  day  is  coming." 


(118) 


OF   DECEPTION 

PASSING  through  a  provincial  town  recently,  I 
noticed  the  posters  of  a  touring  company  who 
were  playing  a  drama  which  was  a  great  success  a 
few  years  ago.  The  principal  part  was  being  taken 
by  a  performer  of  whom,  although  I  keep  too  many 
stage  names  in  my  memory,  I  had  never  before 
heard,  and  small  portraits  of  this  histrion  were  to 
be  seen  on  the  hoardings.  Underneath  these  por- 
traits was  his  name,  and  underneath  his  name 
were  the  words,  in  large  and  arresting  letters, 
"The  Leading  London  Actor."  Were  one  to  be 
asked,  apropos  of  nothing,  who  is  the  leading 
London  actor  to-day,  one  would  reply — what? 
Some  few  years  ago  the  name  of  that  distinguished 
gentleman  who  ruled  at  the  Lyceum  would  nat- 
urally have  sprung  to  the  lips.  But  now?  Opin- 
ions might  differ  now:  they  could  not  have  differed 
then.  Anyway,  the  last  name  to  occur  to  anybody 
would  be  that  of  the  performer  on  this  poster. 
And  yet,  if  the  poster  is  to  be  believed,  here  is 
the  man. 

But,  you  say,  the  poster  is  not  to  be  believed: 
it  is  only  a  theatrical  advertisement.  Subject  for 
thought  there !  Material  for  soul-searching  on  the 
part  of  a  profession  which  when  prosperity  comes 
to  it  can  take  itself  seriously  indeed.      "Only  a 

(H9) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

theatrical  advertisement,"  and  therefore — the  in- 
evitable corollary  runs — not  to  be  swallowed 
exactly  whole.  Still,  I  am  not  here  to  moralise 
Crummies  (who,  one  has  to  remember,  never  be- 
came Sir  Vincent),  and,  after  all,  there  is  no  great 
harm  done  in  foisting  one's  own  valuation  of  one- 
self upon  the  public,  since,  unless  death  untimely 
intervenes,  every  man  finds  his  true  level  during 
his  own  life.  No  one  would  accuse  this  actor  of 
any  criminal  wish  to  deceive;  and  even  if  it  were 
criminal,  no  one  would  mind,  because  actors  are 
outside  so  many  laws. 

It  has  been  held — and  I  agree  with  the  saying 
— that  the  only  person  worth  deceiving  is  oneself. 
So  long  as  one  can  do  that  one  is  happy,  because 
a  fool's  paradise  is,  at  the  time,  no  worse  a  para- 
dise than  a  wise  man's,  supposing  a  wise  man  ever 
to  find  one.  But  to  deceive  other  people  and  not 
oneself  must  be  the  hollowest  of  pleasures.  It  is 
possible  that  the  profound-looking  gentleman  in  his 
study,  with  his  head  on  his  hand,  in  this  theatrical 
poster,  really  believes  himself  to  be  the  leading 
London  actor.  If  so,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  envy 
him  his  frame  of  mind.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that 
every  actor  at  heart  believes  himself  to  be  the  lead- 
ing London  actor:  manque,  perhaps,  but  still  It. 
It  may  be  that  every  actress  at  heart  believes  her- 
self to  be  the  leading  London  actress.  I  hope  so, 
because  such  self-confidence  and  self-esteem  must 
be  delightful  possessions,  although  their  sweetness 
is,  I  suppose,  impaired  by  the  knowledge  that  a 
(120) 


Of  Deception 

vindictive  or  jealous  world  is  fighting  successfully 
against  one's  genius. 

But  what  of  that  soldier  who  recently  was  sen- 
tenced to  ten  months'  imprisonment  for  obtaining 
money  and  hospitality,  and  even  affection,  on  the 
strength  of  a  forged  Victoria  Cross — did  he  believe 
his  gallant  story?  He  could  not  have  done  so; 
or  if  he  did,  then  the  power  of  sophistry  is  vaster 
even  than  one  imagined.  For  this  fellow  himself 
arranged  for  the  false  V.C.  to  be  made  and  en- 
graved, preparing  the  inscription  himself,  and, 
thus  decorated,  it  was  a  simple  matter  in  these 
times  to  be  always  surrounded  by  admirers  ready 
to  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets.  If  he  be- 
lieved his  story,  he  stands  high  among  the  happy 
self-deluders.  If  not,  I  do  not  envy  his  thoughts 
in  the  small  hours  when,  though  at  liberty,  he 
could  not  sleep ;  nor  in  his  cell. 

To  put  oneself  in  the  place  of  others  is  never 
easy,  and  it  is  possible  that  even  Shakespeare  did 
it  with  less  precision  than  it  is  customary  to  think: 
it  may  be  that  his  genius  over-persuades  us  of  his 
success.  But  I  imagine  that  few  feats  of  under- 
standing are  more  difficult  than  for  one  who  hates 
to  convey  a  false  impression  of  himself  to  get 
inside  the  skin  of  such  an  impostor  as  this  spurious 
V.C.  I  was  sorry  that  the  evidence  did  not  bring 
out  more  of  his  real  career.  He  may  have  not 
been  at  the  war  at  all;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  may  have  been  in  the  engagement  where  he 
claimed  to  have  performed  his  great  deed;  and 
he  may  actually  have  performed  it,  but  have  done 

(121) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

so  unobserved,  and,  therefore,  unrewarded;  and 
then  in  time  he  may  have  persuaded  himself  that 
lie  was  the  victim  of  oversight,  and  himself  have 
remedied  the  omission.  Impulsive  courage  and 
careful  fraud  are  by  no  means  incompatible.  My 
own  feeling,  however,  is  that  he  was  a  deliberate 
fabricator. 

The  sham  hero  was  deceiving  with  intent  to 
deceive;  the  leading  London  actor,  it  may  be,  de- 
ceived unconsciously.  But  sometimes  deceit  is 
forced  upon  us,  life  being  so  short,  and  people 
so  stupid,  and  iteration  so  boring.  I  know  that 
I,  for  one,  who  honestly  do  hate  that  any  false 
impression  of  myself  should  obtain,  am  frequently 
misunderstood  on  the  credit  side.  There  is  one 
of  my  friends,  for  example,  who  is  firmly  con- 
vinced that  I  am  an  ornithologist.  He  arrived 
at  this  conviction  on  the  strength  of  a  country  walk, 
long  ago,  in  which  very  insecurely  I  hazarded  the 
names  of  certain  birds ;  and  nothing  can  shake 
him.  Many  a  time  have  I  set  him  right;  but  he 
continues  to  disbelieve  me,  and  I  shall  try  no  more. 
"Oh,  you're  too  modest,"  he  says  with  a  confident 
laugh,  and  there  it  lies.  Were  I  to  die  to-morrow 
and  be  thought  of  sufficient  interest  for  an  obituary 
notice,  and  were  this  friend  invited  to  contribute 
to  it,  he  would  say  something  pretty  about  my 
wonderful  knowledge  of  bird  life.  I  am  certain  of 
this.  Others  (country  walks  really  are  very  dan- 
gerous) firmly  believe  that  I  have  profound  botan- 
ical learning.  I  have  not;  but  they  themselves 
having  none,  and  I  being  able  to  distinguish  bc- 
(122) 


Of  Deception 

tween  a  daisy  and  a  blue  bell,  the  fable  has  grown. 
I  have  long  since  given  up  disclaiming  this  too; 
more  probably  should  I  say,  "Are  you  coming  out 
with  Linnaeus  the  second?"    It  is  the  only  way. 

As  one  grows  older  one  grows  more  hardened, 
and  each  year  brings  a  revision  of  one's  code  of 
delicacy.  A  week  or  so  ago  I  entered  Penzance  for 
the  first  time,  and  I  had  not  been  there  an  hour 
before  a  policeman  saluted  me.  Were  I  meticu- 
lously honest  I  should,  I  suppose,  have  stopped 
to  inform  him  that  I  could  not  possibly  be  the 
person  he  had  thought  I  was,  and  in  a  sense  have 
returned  him  his  gesture  of  honour;  but  I  did 
not.  I  merely  acknowledged  his  courtesy,  and 
fortified  him  in  his  delusion  either  that  he  had 
seen  me  before  or  that  I  was  somebody  of  im- 
portance. 


(12S) 


OF  PLANS  FOR  ONE  MORE  SPRING 

(February  1915) 

IT  is  much  on  my  mind  just  now  that  I  must  not 
waste  a  minute  of  the  spring  that  is  coming. 
We  have  waited  for  it  longer  than  for  any  before, 
and  the  world  has  grown  so  strange  and  unlovely 
since  spring  was  here  last.  Life  has  become  so 
cheap,  human  nature  has  become  so  cruel  and 
wanton,  that  all  sense  of  security  has  gone. 
Hence  this  spring  must  be  lived,  every  moment 
of  it. 

I  know  it  is  coming,  for  I  had  a  sudden  fore- 
taste this  morning.  I  was  conscious  of  it  stirring 
beneath  the  mould;  I  could  hear  it  and  feel  it. 
Moreover,  the  birds  have  begun  to  make  sleep 
difficult  after  six,  bless  their  throats!  The 
thrushes  (the  darlings !)  have  begun  to  perch  on 
the  topmost  spray  of  the  yew  tree  to  try  their 
voices.  Soon  the  starlings  will  be  scrabbling  at 
the  eaves  as  early  as  five,  confound  them! 

Every  year  I  determine  to  do  certain  things  in 
the  spring.  This  year  I  must  surely  do  them. 
There  is  a  hedge,  I  know,  in  a  meadow,  under 
which  one  finds  white  violets.  I  must  go  there. 
Daffodils,  too.  I  know  of  four  certain  spots  for 
daffodils;  not  the  splendid  yellow  lilies  (as  they 
can  grow  to  be)  of  the  London  shops — the  stately 
(124) 


Of  Plans  for  One  More  Spring 

and  distinguished  "Sir  Watkin  Wynn"  and  so 
forth — but  the  daffodils  of  the  meadows,  short 
and  sturdy,  fluttering  in  the  winds  of  March,  all 
bending  their  lovely  heads  together.  One  at 
least — and  I  hope  two — of  those  spots  I  shall 
visit. 

I  shall  find  my  first  primroses  on  the  banks  of 
a  stream  about  two  miles  away.  And  one  day  I 
must  do  a  little  gardenings — not  because  I  like 
digging,  for  I  detest  it  more  almost  than  any  form 
of  exercise,  except  rowings — but  in  order  (a)  to 
get  the  smell  of  the  earth,  and  (6)  to  be  in  the 
company  of  a  robin  once  more.  No  other  toil,  I 
have  observed,  so  bridges  the  gulf  fixed  by  the 
All-Wise  between  man  and  robins  as  digging — 
turning  over  the  soil.  Chopping  wood  is  not  bad; 
but  digging  is  best.  I  know  that  after  two  minutes 
of  spade-work  a  robin  will  arrive  on  the  scene 
and  establish  himself  in  the  stalls,  so  to  speak. 
Where  he  comes  from  will  be  one  mystery,  and 
how  he  learnt  that  I  am  there  will  be  another. 
But  he  will  arrive;  the  marconigraph  of  the  birds 
will  be  in  action;  their  spy  system  will  again  do 
its  work. 

There  is  a  copse  which  the  woodmen  have  been 
clearing  this  winter.  You  know,  of  course,  what 
this  means.  It  means  that  in  May  the  bluebells 
will  flood  it  like  an  azure  sea.  Not  that  I  shall 
wait  until  May  to  go  there,  for  the  anemones  come 
first,  and  the  primroses,  and  now  and  then  an 
early  thrush  flies  scolding  from  her  nest  among 

(125) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  faggots;  but  it  is  going  to  be  the  best  bluebell 
site  about  here. 

I  know  a  cowslip  field  too.  There  is  no  need 
to  pick  any  of  the  other  flowers  except  the  violets ; 
all  the  others  are  more  satisfying  as  they  grow. 
But  cowslips  must  be  picked.  You  pick  them 
until  you  have  a  big  enough  bunch  to  bury  your 
face  in.  Then  you  bury  your  face  in  it.  That  is 
one  of  the  rules  of  spring,  and  if  ever  it  was 
broken,  it  shall  not  be  this  year. 

And  I  must  see  about  erecting  the  owl  box  at 
once,  because  I  can  think  of  nothing  more  fasci- 
nating than  to  have  a  family  of  owls  growing  up 
close  to  the  house,  and  to  watch  their  ghostly 
parents  conveying  food  to  them.  I  do  not  say, 
of  course,  that  a  pair  of  owls  will  come  merely 
because  a  home  is  provided;  but  they  may.  Any- 
way, it  must  not  be  my  fault  that  they  do  not. 

And  the  walks  I  shall  take !  That  one  up  the 
bostel  at  the  side  of  Fronbury,  and  then  along 
the  turf  among  the  larks  for  three  miles,  and  then 
winding  down  through  the  beech  woods  (with  the 
tenderest  green  on  them  you  ever  saw)  to  the 
village  of  East  Tritley.  (These  are  not  the  real 
names.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  I  should  give  the 
real  names:  I  don't  want  half  London  down  here!) 
At  East  Tritley  right  under  the  down  lives  a  friend 
in  a  Tudor  manor-house,  with  a  formal  garden 
and  wainscoting,  a  picture  by  Matthew  Maris,  and 
other  delectabilities,  and  with  him  I  shall  have 
tea,  and  saunter  slowly  back  just  as  the  day  is 
turning  to  evening  and  the  thrushes  and  black- 
(126) 


Of  Plans  for  One  More  Spring 

birds  are  at  their  best.  And  as  I  draw  near  home 
I  shall  walk  into  the  evening  turmoil  of  the  rookery 
close  by.  This  racket,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has 
already  begun,  but  at  present  it  is  the  usual  row 
between  builders  and  architects  over  the  specifica- 
tions. Later  there  will  be  the  jangle  of  the  family 
too. 

The  great  charm  of  this  walk  is  the  wide  pros- 
pect from  the  top  of  the  downs — some  nine  hun- 
dred feet  up — and  then  the  search,  as  one  descends 
to  the  plain  at  the  foot,  for  the  boldest  primrose: 
that  is  to  say,  for  that  primrose  which  has  suc- 
ceeded in  climbing  highest  up  the  slopes.  Inci- 
dentally, there  will  be  hawks  to  watch.  Now  and 
then  I  shall  almost  step  on  a  hare  in  her  form. 
Also,  there  is  a  bank  on  the  north  side  of  Fron- 
bury,  where,  if  the  sun  is  hot,  one  is  almost  sure 
to  see  an  adder  or  two,  and  perhaps  a  grass  snake, 
thawing  the  winter  from  their  bones. 

Another  walk  will  be  through  Tritley  Park, 
among  the  venerable  Spanish  chestnuts  and  the 
deer,  to  Vests  Common,  where  another  friend  has 
what  the  cultured  call  a  pied-a-terre  and  the  simple 
a  cottage.  The  special  charm  of  Vests  is  that 
it  is  an  oasis  of  red  sand  in  a  district  mainly  com- 
posed of  clay  or  chalk.  Scotch  firs  and  other  firs 
are  the  only  trees,  save  for  delicate  silver  birches 
which  in  the  spring  are  like  green  flames;  and  in 
May  the  brake  ferns  begin  to  force  their  arched 
necks  through  the  peat  like  submerged  swans. 
Well,  Vests  Common  will  be  a  very  constant  joy 
to  me  this  spring.     I  shall  roam  there  continually, 

(127) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

and,  very  likely,  induce  my  friend  to  let  me  have 
his  cottage  for  a  few  days  directly  the  nightingales 
are  in  force. 

What  a  programme! 


(128) 


"K.C.' 


THE  letters  at  the  head  of  this  essay  do  not 
refer  to  any  royal  college,  or  to  the  late  Lord 
Randolph  Churchill,  or  to  "Randall  Cantuar"  (as 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  humorously  signs 
himself),  or  to  that  comforting  form  of  religion 
as  dispensed  by  his  great  rival  the  Pope.  They 
were  copied  from  a  Continental  Bradshaw,  where 
you  find  them  or  not,  according  as  to  whether  or 
not  a  train  has  a  Restaurant  Car  attached  to  it. 
They  stand  for  Restaurant  Cars,  those  structures 
of  brown  wood  and  plate-glass  which  trains  in 
Europe  mysteriously  pick  up  and  attach  to  them- 
selves at  odd  places  en  route,  and  again,  their 
mission  of  more  or  less  nourishing  the  traveller 
fulfilled,  as  mysteriously  shed. 

To  Americans  I  suppose  it  is  nothing  to  eat  at 
a  table  on  a  train.  But  in  England  there  are  still 
millions  of  people  who  have  never  in  their  own 
country  partaken  of  food  on  railway  journeys 
except  from  nose-bags,  and  have  never  crossed 
the  Channel.  There  are  also  a  certain  number, 
both  English  and  Americans,  who  know  the 
European  Restaurant  Car  intimately,  and  deem 
the  time  spent  within  it  the  best  part  of  the 
journey;  and  there  are  those  who  detest  it.  Of 
the  latter  am  I. 

(129) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

When  the  indictment  of  the  Wagon-lit 
Restaurant  Cars  comes  to  be  drawn  up,  I  shall 
be  able  to  assist  very  materially.  To  begin  with, 
there  is  that  offensive  autocracy  on  the  part  of 
the  attendant  which  determines  where  you  are  to 
sit,  a  matter  that  is  much  to  you  and  nothing  to 
him,  and  yet  upon  which  he  is  absolute  and  un- 
compromising. Never  has  any  one  yet,  taking 
a  seat  independently,  been  permitted  to  retain  it. 
Secondly,  there  is  the  considerable  item  of  ven- 
tilation, no  middle  way  being  possible  between  the 
two  extremes  of  suffocating  heat  and  a  draught 
that  may  leave  a  hundred  bitter  legacies.  I  say 
nothing  of  the  discomforts  caused  by  the  oscilla- 
tion of  the  train,  through  which  you  pour  your 
wine  into  your  neighbour's  glass,  for  that  obviously 
is  less  the  fault  of  the  wagon-lit  than  of  the  track- 
layer (there  is  one  point  between  Calais  and 
Boulogne  where  every  bottle  crashes  on  its  side) ; 
nor  is  it  exactly  the  car's  fault  that  the  people 
who  sit  opposite  you  are  not  only  always  pro- 
foundly and  minutely  antipathetic,  but  are  so 
secretive  with  the  salt. 

We  pass  on  then  to  more  personal  charges,  such 
as  the  wine,  which  is  always  very  bad  and  very 
dear;  and  the  utensils,  which  those  who  know 
may  be  seen  polishing  afresh  with  their  napkins 
(so  that  it  has  become  a  sign  of  much  travel  when 
a  man  does  this) ;  and  thus  we  reach  the  meal 
itself.  Here  again  the  caprice  of  the  attendants 
is  more  marked,  a  certain  type  of  man  always 
having  a  full  selection  of  hors  d'oeuvres  set  before 
(130) 


"R.C." 

him,  including  butter,  while  another  group,  of 
which  I  am  a  birth-right  member,  is  put  off  with 
only  one  or  at  most  two  varieties,  and  those 
unpalatable.  I  have  spent  more  pains  to  get  the 
butter  in  a  Restaurant  Car  than  other  men  in 
acquiring  virtue;  but  enough  indigestible  radishes 
have  surrounded  me  to  sustain  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw's  remarkable  genius  for  a  week,  and  enough 
tessellated  sausage  to  pave  a  bathroom.  With  the 
rest  of  the  meal  it  is  the  same — not  only  do  I 
dislike  the  food,  but  others  get  more  than  I.  Some 
travellers  who  seem  to  possess  many  of  the  stig- 
mata of  the  gentleman  are  able  even  to  ask  for  a 
second  helping.  That  these  men  fill  me  with  a 
kind  of  perverted  admiration  I  will  not  deny,  but 
I  cannot  imitate  them.  I  cannot  interrupt  a  wagon- 
lit  waiter  in  what  seems  to  be  as  much  a  natural 
and  irresistible  process  as  the  onrush  of  water 
at  Niagara.  I  have  not  that  courage,  that  self- 
assertiveness.    Nor  do  I  care  enough. 

And  then  the  delays  between  the  courses;  the 
injustices  of  the  distribution,  by  which  the  same 
table  again  and  again  gets  the  first  chance  at  the 
new  dish;  the  strain  of  the  noise  of  it  all,  aggra- 
vated by  the  anxiety  that  one  feels  when  a  waiter 
lurches  along  balancing  a  thousand  plates  at  once 
— such  are  a  few  only  of  the  damaging  criticisms 
which  I  am  prepared  to  bring  against  the 
Restaurant  Car. 

But  (such  is  the  sharpness  of  the  serpent's 
tooth)  do  you  suppose  for  an  instant  that  any 
single  one  of  these  charges  would  be  endorsed  by 

(131) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  small  person  of  comparatively  tender  years, 
now  at  school,  whom  it  is  my  quaint  fortune  to 
call  daughter  and  have  to  clothe  and  support? 
Not  one.  Anything  less  filial  than  she  would 
become  if  she  were  asked  to  back  me  in  the  matter 
could  not  be  imagined.  For  to  her  the  Wagon-lit 
Restaurant  Car  is  the  true  earthly  paradise,  and 
travel  on  the  Continent  merely  a  means  of  grati- 
fying her  passion  for  eating  on  trains.  Her  ex- 
pression of  joy  on  taking  what  in  such  places 
they  call  a  seat,  a  stubborn,  resisting,  struggling 
thing  which  has  to  be  held  down  by  main  force 
before  you  can  occupy  it,  is  amazing.  Her  happy 
excitement  on  reading  the  menu  and  finding  the 
same  tiresome  dishes  is  incredible.  Her  delight 
in  every  moment  of  the  meal  is  my  despair.  But 
no  reverses  can  change  her,  and  if  she  asks  how 
long  does  it  take  to  get  from  Paris  to  Rome,  and 
after  working  out  the  journey  with  infinite  trouble 
I  tell  her,  it  is  only  that  she  may  compute  the 
number  of  wagon-lit  lunches  and  dinners  that 
will  fall  to  her  ecstatic  lot.  She  even  likes  the 
ice-pudding;  she  even  likes  her  neighbours. 

As  a  fond  father,  I  say,  then,  let  the  Restaurant 
Cars  go  on.  But  when  peace  returns,  and  Europe 
is  again  unlocked,  and  I  travel  once  more  (as  in 
the  Golden  Age)  from  Calais  or  Boulogne  to  Paris, 
if  I  am  alone  I  shall  again  provide  myself  with 
the  basket  from  the  buffet  which  contains  half  a 
chicken  and  half  a  bottle  of  claret  and  a  tiny 
corkscrew  and  an  apple  or  a  pear  and  bread  and 
butter  and  a  piece  of  Gruyere  and  a  paper  napkin, 
(132) 


"R.C." 

and  eat  it  in  seclusion  in  a  compartment  which 
the  other  people  have  left  in  order  that  they  may 
avoid  each  other's  eyes,  and  be  balked  of  sufficient 
nourishment,  amid  all  the  clatter  and  nervousness 
of  the  Restaurant  Car. 


(133) 


THE   TWO   LADIES 

AFTER  reading  aloud  some  of  the  sketches 
by  The  Two  Ladies  (as  I  always  think  of 
"Martin  Ross"  and  Miss  E.  CE.  Somerville),  and 
in  particular  "The  House  of  Fahy,"  which  I  have 
always  held  is  one  of  the  best  short  stories  ever 
written,  with  a  last  sentence  that  no  one  but  a 
professional  elocutionist  with  nerves  of  steel  could 
possibly  compass,  it  amused  me  to  imagine  a  room 
filled  with  devotees  of  the  Experiences  of  an  Irish 
R.M.,  such  as  might  as  easily  exist  as  a  Boz  Club, 
capping  quotations  from  that  and  its  companion 
books  and  finding  pleasure  in  expressing  admira- 
tion in  the  warmest  terms  and  in  minute  detail; 
and  there  are  not  many  pleasures  greater  than 
that. 

The  discussion  might,  indeed,  have  begun  by 
the  old  question,  What  are  the  best  short  stories 
in  the  world?  and  my  own  insistence  on  the  claims 
of  this  very  "House  of  Fahy"  to  a  place  high  on 
the  list;  because,  as  I  should  have  urged,  it  relates 
an  episode  proper  only  to  the  short-story  medium; 
there  is  no  word  too  many  or  too  few;  it  has 
atmosphere  and  character;  it  is  absorbing;  it  has  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end — such  an  end! 

"But  what  about  'The   Maroan   Pony'?"   some 
one  might  have  inquired.     "Isn't  that  a   perfect 
short   story  too?" 
(134) 


The  Two  Ladies 

And  I  should  have  replied  that  it  is. 

"And  'Harrington's'  ?"  some  one  else  might  have 
urged.  "Isn't  that  perfect?  And  it  has  an  extra 
quality,  for  in  addition  to  all  the  humour  of  it, 
and  the  wonderful  picture  of  a  country  auction 
sale,  it  has  that  tragic  touch.  To  my  mind  it  is 
greater  than  'The  House  of  Fahy.'  " 

And  then  I  am  sure  that  a  most  emphatic  claim 
for  "Trinket's  Colt"  as  the  best  of  all  would  have 
been  formulated;  and  by  this  time  we  should  have 
been  right  in  the  thick  of  it,  all  eager  to  speak 
and  be  heard. 

To  me  The  Two  Ladies  have  long  been  the  only 
contemporary  authors  whom  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  read  twice  instantly:  the  first  time  for  the 
story  itself,  which  is  always  so  intriguing — and 
the  more  so  as  you  get  more  familiar  with  the 
ingenuity  of  their  methods — as  to  exact  a  high 
speed;  and  the  second  time  for  the  detail,  the 
little  touches  of  observation  and  experience,  and 
the  amazing,  and  to  an  envious  writer  despairful, 
adequacy  of  epithet.  And  having  read  them  twice, 
I  find  that  whenever  I  pick  them  up  again  there  is 
something  new,  something  not  fully  tasted  before. 
Indeed,  at  any  rate  in  the  R.M.  series,  they  are 
the  most  trustworthy  and  re-readable  of  any 
writers  of  our  time. 

"Talking  of  observation  and  experience"  (here 
I  resume  the  report  of  the  imaginary  club  of 
devotees),  one  said,  "they  know  everything.  That 
they  should  be  wise  about  hunting  and  Irish  life 
is  natural.    Hunting  and  Irish  life  are  their  strong 

(135) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

suit.  But  they  know  all  about  the  sea  too:  no  one 
has  so  etched  in  the  horrors  of  a  ground  swell  on  a 
hot  day.  They  know  all  about  servants.  They 
know  all  about  dogs — what  dogs  think  and  how 
dogs  feel." 

"But  most  remarkable  of  all,"  said  another, 
"is  their  knowledge  of  man — and  married  man 
at  that.  Who  would  ever  have  guessed  that  Major 
Sinclair  Yeates  was  the  invention  of  two  single 
women?  I  cannot  find  a  single  slip  into  sheer 
femininity  in  all  his  narratives." 

The  superiority  of  the  R.M.  stories  over  the 
others  would  have  given  us  a  wide  field  for  debate ; 
and  I  should  certainly  have  cited  their  fellow- 
countryman  Goldsmith  as  an  earlier  example  of 
the  greater  ease  and  power  that  some  authors 
attain  when  they  assume  an  imaginary  character. 
For  good  as  their  other  sketches  and  novels  are, 
The  Two  Ladies  were  never  so  fully  armed  at 
every  point  as  when  they  thought  themselves 
Major  Yeates — just  as  Goldsmith  was  so  much 
more  effective  when  he  was  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield 
or  the  Citizen  of  the  World. 

"It  is  possible,"  I  might  have  said,  "that  all 
collaborators  should  invent  some  such  personality 
as  the  Major,  to  give  them  common  ground  on  to 
which  they  can  simultaneously  step."  And  the 
case  of  Addison  and  Steele  and  Sir  Roger,  although 
there  was  there  no  impersonation,  would  perhaps 
have  occurred  to  me. 

Thus  we  might  have  begun,  and  so  have  passed 
on  to  the  consideration  of  the  work  of  The  Two 
(136) 


The  Two  Ladies 

Ladies  as  a  whole,  and  have  grown  happy  in  the 
excitement  of  bestowing  praise. 

"They  are  the  only  humourists,"  I  seem  to  hear 
another  saying,  "who  never  relax.  In  the  R.M. 
books  their  whole  attitude  to  life  is  humorous, 
and  so  splendid  is  their  sense  of  duty  to  their 
readers,  that  their  almost  every  sentence  is  humor- 
ous. Do  you  remember,  for  example,  how  when 
Anthony  asks  his  mother  what  auctions  are,  that 
confirmed  bargain-seeker  does  not  merely  tell  him, 
as  another  author  might  have  made  her,  but 
'instructs  him  even  as  the  maternal  carnivore 
instructs  her  young  in  the  art  of  slaughter'?  And 
how  Flurry's  handwriting  was  'an  unattractive 
blend  of  the  laundress's  bill  and  the  rambling 
zigzag  of  the  temperature  charts'?" 

"If  you  are  going  to  begin  quoting  good 
phrases,"  I  should  have  said,  "I  can  give  you 
plenty.  For  I  have  always  held  that  when  it 
comes  to  sheer  writing,  good  writing,  clear  writing, 
vivid  writing,  vigilant  writing,  The  Two  Ladies 
have  no  equal  and  no  superior.  The  art  of  sug- 
gesting one  effect  by  a  reference  to  another  was 
never  practised  with  finer  skill  than  by  these 
authors.  Do  you  remember  how  when  the  two 
terriers  followed  Flurry's  hunt,  their  'yelps 
streamed  back  from  them  like  the  sparks  from 
an  engine'?  and  the  uneven  Irish  road  which 
'accepted  pessimistically  the  facts  of  Nature'?  and 
the  reluctant  dog  who  'resolved  himself  into  jelly 
and  lead'?  and  how  when  the  R.M.  was  told  by 
Flurry  to  watch  a  certain  spot  for  the  fox,  the 

(137) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

concentration  of  his  eyeglass  upon  the  gap  was 
of  'such  intensity  that  had  the  fox  appeared  he 
would  have  fallen  into  a  hypnotic  trance'  ?" 

"A  remarkable  thing  in  their  writing,"  another 
might  say,  "is  their  double  gift  of  painting  with 
equal  power  broad  landscape  and  Dutch  interiors. 
Some  of  their  rapid  Irish  backgrounds  are  mar- 
vels of  lucid  impressionism,  and  never  a  word  more 
of  it  than  the  story  requires.  Their  instinct  for 
saliences  in  landscape  and  in  all  their  descriptions 
is  indeed  marvellous." 

"And  their  knowledge  of  their  countrymen !"  he 
might  continue.  "Do  you  remember  how  they  refer 
to  an  Irishman  as  always  a  critic  in  the  stalls 
and  yet  in  spirit  behind  the  scenes  too?  And 
their  Irish  idioms!  The  whisky  that  was  'pliable 
as  milk' !" 

"Another  remarkable  thing  about  them,"  I  hope 
I  should  have  dropped  in,  "is  what  one  might 
call  their  all-of-a-pieceness.  Their  first  story  and 
their  last  are  equally  mellow  and  mature,  although 
years  intervened.  They  forget  nothing.  The 
R.M.  remains  the  same." 

"And  their  modesty !  They  have  added  to  fiction 
certain  characters  that  will  not  die  for  generations 
and  may  even  be  immortal — in  Flurry  Knox,  in 
his  grandmother,  in  Slipper,  in  Maria,  in  Dr. 
Jerome  Hickey — and  there  has  been  no  flourish  of 
trumpets,  no  heralding.  These  figures  have  not 
even  had  a  novel  to  appear  in,  but  occur  casually 
in  that  previously  most  negligible  literary  form — 
the  humorous  sketch  of  Irish  life.  The  Real 
(138) 


The  Two  Ladies 

Charlotte,  that  wonderful  creation,  it  is  true,  has  a 
long  novel  all  to  herself;  but  for  one  reader 
fortunate  enough  to  know  her,  there  are  fifty  who 
know  the  others." 

Finally  might  come  this  comment:  "They  are 
the  last  really  passionate  friends  of  the  noble 
animal.  Not  that  they  don't  understand  motor- 
cars; but  their  attitude  to  horses  is  more  than 
understanding:  it  is  intimate,  sympathetic,  humor- 
ous, with  a  vast  tolerance  for  equine  mischief. 
Do  you  remember  the  trainer  of  Fanny  Fitz's 
'Gamble'  in  All  on  the  Irish  Shore — how  he  met  a 
mare  he  had  once  owned,  and  he  did  not  know 
her  but  she  knew  him?  It  is  one  of  the  prettiest 
pieces  of  writing  that  ever  came  out  of  Ireland. 
It  was  after  the  fair  at  Enniscar,  'an'  I  was  talk- 
ing to  a  man  an'  was  coming  down  Dangan  Hill, 
and  what  was  in  it  but  herself  [the  mare]  coming 
up  in  a  cart!  An'  I  didn't  look  at  her  good  nor 
bad,  nor  know  her,  but  sorra  bit  but  she  knew 
me  talking,  an'  she  turned  into  me  with  the  cart. 
"Ho!  ho!  ho!"  says  she,  an'  she  stuck  her  nose 
into  me  like  she'd  be  kissing  me.  Be  dam,  but  I 
had  to  cry.  An'  the  world  wouldn't  stir  her  o' 
that  till  I'd  lead  her  on  meself.'  And  then  he 
utters  this  immortal  sentiment:  'As  for  cow  nor 
dog  nor  any  other  thing,  there's  nothing  would 
rise  your  heart  like  a  horse.' — Isn't  that  beautiful?" 

Thus  enthusiastically  might  we  have  talked! 

And  now  the  bond  has  snapped,  and  "Martin 
Ross,"  who  was  Miss  Violet  Martin,  is  dead.  With 
her  death  the  series  stops,  for  though  neither  was 

(139) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  dominant  spirit,  the  prosperity  of  the  work 
demanded  both.  As  to  The  Two  Ladies'  method 
of  collaboration  I  know  nothing,  and  should  like 
to  know  all;  which  held  the  pen  I  have  no  notion, 
or  if  one  alone  held  it.  But  that  it  was  complete 
and  perfect  is  proved  by  this  sentence  from  a 
private  letter  from  one  very  near  to  them,  which 
I  may  perhaps  take  the  liberty  of  quoting,  since 
it  embodies  a  remark  made  by  the  survivor  of  the 
many,  many  years'  partnership.  "There  isn't 
a  page,  there  isn't  a  paragraph,  there  isn't  a  line 
which  either  of  us  could  claim  as  her  sole  work." 
That  is  collaboration  in  the  highest  degree,  two 
minds  that  not  only  work  as  one,  but  are  one. 


(140) 


ONCE    UPON    A   TIME 
I     The  Two  Perfumes 

ONCE  upon  a  time  there  was  a  common,  and 
on  it  a  cottage  had  been  built  with  a  high 
bank  beside  it,  and  on  this  bank  grew  a  lilac-tree 
whose  branches  hung  very  near  the  path,  and 
below  the  lilac  was  a  great  mass  of  rich  brown 
wallflowers. 

Looking  up  one  afternoon  the  lilac  saw  a  way- 
farer approaching.  "I  hope  he  will  notice  me 
and  stop,"  she  thought;  for  she  had  but  a  short 
time  of  blossom,  and  she  knew  it,  and  it  gave  her 
pleasure  to  be  courted  and  praised. 

"There's  some  one  coming,"  she  said  to  the 
wallflower.  "He  looks  rather  interesting.  I  think 
he'll  stop." 

"If  he  does,"  said  the  wallflower,  "it  will  be  for 
you.  I've  been  going  on  too  long.  They're  all 
tired  of  me  by  now." 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,"  said  the  lilac.  "I 
wish  I  did.  This  one  looks  to  me  as  if  he  would 
be  fond  of  both  of  us.     I  tell  you  he's  nice." 

"Let's  have  a  bet,"  said  the  wallflower.  "I  bet 
you  that  he  pays  more  attention  to  you  than 
to  me." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  lilac;  "and  I  bet  he  pays 
more  attention  to  you.     How  much?"  v 

(141) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"Two  bees,"  said  the  wallflower. 

"Done,"  said  the  lilac  as  the  man  reached 
them. 

He  was  a  middle-aged  man,  with  a  kindly  face, 
and  he  knelt  down  by  the  wallflowers  and  took  a 
long  draught  of  them. 

Immediately  his  years  left  him  and  he  was  a  boy 
again.  He  thought  himself  in  an  old  garden.  The 
walls  had  toad-flax  between  the  bricks.  There 
was  a  tortoise  in  the  greenhouse.  The  lawn  was 
very  bare  where  he  and  his  brothers  and  sisters 
played  too  much  cricket.  All  along  the  front 
of  the  house  was  a  bed  of  wallflowers,  and  in  a 
chair  by  the  window  of  the  dining-room  lay  a  lady 
sewing.  Every  now  and  then  she  looked  up  and 
smiled  at  the  cricketers.  "Well  hit!"  she  would 
say,  or  "Well  caught!" 

Whenever  they  were  out  they  ran  to  her  for  a 
second  and  kissed  her — not  long  enough  to  inter- 
rupt the  game,  but  just  to  let  her  know  that  she 
was  the  most  beautiful  and  adorable  creature  in 
the  world. 

The  man's  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Why  did  the 
scent  of  wallflowers  always  bring  back  this  scene, 
and  this  only?     But  it  did. 

He  reached  up  and  pulled  a  branch  of  lilac  to 
his  face,  and  straightway  he  was  a  young  man 
again.  He  was  not  alone.  It  was  night  and  the 
moon  was  shining,  and  he  was  standing  in  the 
garden  with  a  beautiful  girl  beside  him.  It  was 
the  hour  of  his  betrothal.  "How  wonderful!" 
(142) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

she  said  at  last.  "Oh,  I  am  too  happy!"  And 
again  his  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

Then  once  more  he  buried  his  face  in  the  wall- 
flowers. .  .  . 

After  he  had  passed  on  his  way  across  the 
common,  "I've  won,"  said  the  lilac  sadly. 

"Yes,"  said  the  wallflower.  "I  owe  you  two 
bees.     I  won't  forget  to  send  them  on." 


II     The  Dog  Violets 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  patch  of  dog 
violets  growing  on  a  bank  in  March.  They  were 
very  beautiful  but  they  had  no  scent,  and  the 
country  people,  knowing  this,  passed  them  by. 

Day  after  day  the  flowers  heard  scornful  re- 
marks about  themselves.  "They're  only  dog 
violets,"  said  one  of  the  knowing  country  people. 
"Don't  bother  about  them,"  said  another.  "I  know 
where  there's  real  violets,"  said  a  third;  "come 
on!" 

And  since  no  one  likes  to  be  overlooked  and 
despised,  even  though  attention  should  mean 
destruction,  the  dog  violets  were  very  unhappy. 
"As  if  perfume  was  everything!"  they  said;  while 
one  of  them  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  she 
always  found  the  scent  of  the  other  kind  of  violets 
overpowering.  "A  strong  scent  is  so  vulgar,"  she 
added.  "Yes,"  said  another,  "and  so  are  rich 
colours.     Pale  tints  are  much  more  distinguished." 

One  day  the  princess  came  driving  along  from 

(143) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  royal  city  in  her  gold  coach,  and  seeing  the 
patch  of  flowers  on  the  hank  she  gave  orders  for 
the  carriage  to  stop.  "Oh,  how  beautiful !"  she 
said,  for,  being  a  princess,  she  had  never  seen 
violets  growing  before ;  she  had  seen  only  tiger- 
lilies  and  camellias  and  smilax  and  Marechal  Niels. 
"How  beautiful !"  she  cried,  and  she  bade  her  lord 
chamberlain  bring  her  a  great  bunch. 

"Those!"  he  replied  in  surprise.  "Does  not 
your  Royal  Highness  know  that  they  are  only 
dog  violets;  they  have  no  scent." 

"The  darlings !"  she  cried.  "It  wouldn't  matter 
if  they  had,  I've  got  such  an  awful  cold;"  and  she 
pressed  them  to  her  white  bosom,  where  in  an 
ineffable  rapture  of  pride  and  content  they 
swooned  away. 

Ill     The  Devout  Lover 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  fox  who  fell  in 
love  with  a  pretty  little  lady  fox.  He  called  her 
either  Sweet  Auburn  or  Loveliest  Vixen  of  the 
Plain,  and  in  the  small  hours,  when  all  the  world 
was  asleep,  they  went  for  delightful  strolls  to- 
gether, and  talked  a  deal  of  pleasant  nonsense,  and 
killed  numbers  of  young  chickens,  and  fed  each 
other  with  titbits,  as  lovers  do. 

One  day  Sweet  Auburn  casually  mentioned  her 
approaching  birthday,  which  chanced  to  be  on 
May  the  15th,  and  said  she  would  like  nothing 
so  much  as  gloves. 

"What  colour?"   he  asked. 
(144) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

"Purple,"  she  told  him;  and  he  agreed. 

"With  white  and  purple  spots  inside,"  she 
added;  and  he  agreed  again. 

"And  lined  with  glistening  hairs,"  she  called 
after  him;  and  he  agreed  once  more. 

When,  however,  he  told  his  mother,  the  old  lady 
was  discouraging.  "They  won't  be  out  by  then," 
she  said,  "fox-gloves  won't." 

His  mother  was  a  widow.  An  unfortunate  meet- 
ing with  the  local  pack  had  deprived  her  for  ever 
of  her  beloved  chicken-winner.  She  had  however 
brought  up,  with  much  pluck  and  resource,  her 
family,  unaided. 

"You'll  never  get  them  by  the  15th,"  she  added, 
"that's  a  fortnight  too  early." 

"But  I  must,"  replied  her  son,  with  the  im- 
petuosity and  determination  of  youth. 

"You'll  never,"   said  his   mother. 

Undismayed  he  set  forth  and  searched  the  coun- 
try-side for  fox-gloves.  He  found  many  plants  in 
various  early  stages  of  growth,  but  all  were  far 
indeed  from  the  time  to  exhibit  their  stock-in- 
trade. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  said  his  mother. 

The  day  drew  nearer.  He  extended  his  travels, 
but  in  vain,  until  one  morning,  at  about  a  quarter 
to  five,  when  he  ought  to  have  been  at  home  again, 
he  came  upon  a  fox-glove  stalk  which  actually 
had  buds  on  it.  Carefully  marking  the  spot,  he 
rushed  back  with  the  news. 

"But  how  can  blossoms  be  ready  in  four  days?" 
he  asked  his  mother. 

(145) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"Intensive  culture/'  said  the  old  lady.  "There's 
nothing  but  that." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean/'  said  her  son. 

"Of  course  not;  you're  only  a  child.  It  means 
you  must  supply  heat  and  nourishment.  You 
must  curl  your  warm  body  round  that  stalk  every 
evening  as  soon  as  the  sun  sets  and  lie  there  with- 
out moving  till  the  sun's  up,  and  you  must  water 
the  roots  with  your  tears.  On  no  account  must 
you  move  or  nap." 

"Really?"  he  asked  nervously. 

"If  you  truly  love/'  said  his  mother. 

"I  wonder,"  he  thought;  but  after  paying  an- 
other visit  to  Sweet  Auburn  he  knew  that  he  did, 
and  he  promised  her  the  gloves  for  a  certainty. 

Late  on  the  evening  of  the  15th,  when  she  had 
almost  given  him  up,  he  staggered  into  her  abode, 
wan  and  weary,  and  laid  a  pair  of  superb  gloves  at 
her  feet.  They  were  a  beautiful  purple  lined  with 
glistening  hairs  and  they  had  white  and  purple 
spots  inside. 

"Many  happy  returns,"  he  said.  "They're  ab- 
solutely the  first  of  the  season.  You'll  be  able  to 
set  the  fashion." 

"Darling  Reynolds !"  she  replied,  embracing 
him,  and  named  the  happy  day. 

IV     Wireless 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  daisy  who  con- 
ceived  a   fierce  passion   for   another   daisy   a    few 
(146) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

inches  away.  He  would  look  at  this  daisy  hour 
after  hour  with  mute  longing.  It  was  impossible 
to  tell  his  love,  because  she  was  too  far  off,  for 
daisies  have  absurdly  weak  voices.  They  have 
eyes  of  gold  and  the  most  dazzling  linen,  but 
their  voices  are  ridiculous. 

One  day  by  happy  chance  a  bronze-wing  butter- 
fly flitted  into  the  meadow,  and  the  daisy  saw  it 
passing  from  one  to  another  of  his  companions, 
settling  for  a  few  moments  on  each.  Bronze- 
wings  are  partial  to  daisies.  He  was  an  ingenious 
and  enterprising  fellow,  this  flower — something, 
in  fact,  of  a  "Card,"  as  they  say  in  the  Five  Fields 
— and  an  idea  suddenly  came  to  him  which  not  only 
would  enable  his  dearest  wish  to  be  realised  but 
might  be  profitable  too. 

It  was  an  idea,  however,  that  could  be  carried 
out  only  with  the  assistance  of  the  bronze-wing, 
and  he  trembled  with  anxiety  and  apprehension 
lest  the  butterfly  should  pass  him  by. 

At  last,  however,  after  half  a  dozen  false  ap- 
proaches which  nearly  reduced  the  daisy  to  the 
trembling  condition  of  an  anemone,  the  bronze- 
wing  settled  right  on  his  head. 

"Good  afternoon,"  said  the  daisy.  "You're  just 
the  person  I  wanted  to  see." 

"Good  afternoon,"  said  the  bronze-wing. 
"What  can  I  do  for  you?" 

"Well,"  said  the  daisy,  "the  fact  is  I  have  a 
message  for  a  lady  over  there.  Would  you  take 
it?" 

(147) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"With  pleasure,"  said  the  bronze-wing;  and 
the  daisy  whispered  a  loving  message  to  him. 

"Which  one  is  it?"  he  asked,  when  ready  to 
start. 

"How  can  you  ask?  Why,  the  beautiful  one," 
said  the  daisy. 

"They  all  look  alike  to  me,"  said  the  bronze- 
wing. 

"Foolish  myope,"  said  the  daisy.  "There's  only 
one  really  beautiful  one — just  over  there." 

"All  right,"  said  the  bronze-wing;  "but  you 
mustn't  call  me  names,"  and  off  he  flitted. 

Presently  he  came  back  and  whispered  the  reply, 
which  was  so  satisfactory  that  the  edge  of  the 
daisy's  dazzling  white  ruff  turned  pink. 

"Now,"  said  the  bronze-wing,  "what  about  my 
payment  ?" 

"Well,"  said  the  daisy,  "my  idea  is  that  you 
should  devote  yourself  wholly  to  this  meadow  and 
the  daisies  in  it.  There  are  enough  of  us  to  keep 
you  going.  You  won't  have  to  travel  and  get  tired, 
and  you'll  be  safe  because  no  boys  with  butterfly 
nets" — the  bronze-wing  shuddered — "have  ever 
been  seen  here.  You  will  become  our  Mercury  and 
keep  us  all  in  communication.     And  in  return " 

"Yes?"  said  the  bronze-wing  eagerly. 

"In  return  we  will  refuse  the  attentions  of  other 
visitors;  all  our  honey  shall  be  for  you.  All  our 
energies  shall  go  to  providing  you  with  the  best." 

"Done,"  said  the  bronze-wing. 

"Better  make  a  start  at  once,"  said  the  Card. 
"Here's  another  message  for  that  lady;"  and  he 
(148) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

whispered  again,  and  off  the  bronze-wing  flitted. 

He  was  soon  back  with  the  reply,  which  turned 
the  edges  of  the  daisy's  ruff  pinker  than  before. 

"Now  tell  her  this,"  said  the  daisy. 

"But  what  about  the  rest  of  the  field?"  asked 
the  bronze-wing. 

"Never  mind  about  any  one  else,"  said  the 
lover. 

V     The  Vaseful 

Once  upon  a  time  a  little  company  of  the  wild 
flowers  of  spring  found  themselves  together  in  a 
vase.  It  was  the  first  time  that  many  of  them 
had  met;  for  although  they  came  from  the  same 
district,  indeed  the  same  copse,  and  had  heard  of 
each  other's  characteristics,  they  had  grown  up  too 
far  away  from  each  other  for  conversation,  and 
flowers,  of  course,  cannot  walk.  It  was  there- 
fore with  peculiar  interest  that  they  now  examined 
each  other  and  fell  a-talking. 

There  was  naturally  a  little  reserve  at  first,  for 
social  grades  must  be  preserved;  but  they  were  so 
tightly  packed  in  the  vase,  and  for  the  most  part 
so  forlorn  at  their  fate,  that  barriers  soon  disap- 
peared, and  the  oxlip  ceased  to  despise  the  cow- 
slip, and  the  cowslip  was  quite  nice  to  the  primrose, 
and  the  purple  orchis  almost  dropped  his  aris- 
tocratic drawl  when  talking  to  the  bluebell. 

The  purple  orchis,  who  was  not  only  a  heavy 
drinker  but  rather  a  bully,  was  the  only  one  who 
was  not  unhappy  to  be  there.     "I  knew  I  should 

(149) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

attract  attention  soon,"  he  said;  "there  were  so 
few  of  us  and  we're  so  noticeable.  By  Jove,  this 
tipple's  delicious !"  and  he  took  a  long  draught. 

"Please  don't  push  so,"  said  a  small  voice  at  his 
side. 

"Why,  what's  the  matter?"  the  orchis  asked. 
"You  anemones  are  always  such  weaklings." 

"I'm  afraid  I  feel  rather  faint,"  replied  the 
anemone.  "I'm  not  strong  at  any  time,  it's  true, 
and  just  now,  no  matter  how  I  stretch,  I  can't 
quite  reach  the  water.  I'm  afraid  that  little  girl 
put  me  in  the  vase  rather  carelessly." 

"Or  else" — the  orchis  laughed — "or  else  I'm 
getting  more  than  my  share.     Ha,  ha !" 

"Surely,"  said  a  cowslip  to  a  bluebell,  "there 
were  more  of  you  in  the  little  girl's  hands  when 
we  left  the  wood?" 

"Alas,  yes,"  said  the  bluebell.  "Most  of  my 
closest  friends  were  picked  too,  and  I  hoped  we 
were  all  coming  along  together.  But  for  some 
reason  or  other  which  has  never  been  explained 
to  me  bluebells  seem  to  be  more  easily  and  more 
often  thrown  away  after  being  picked  than  any 
other  flower;  and  all  my  companions  must  have 
suffered  that  fate." 

"It  is  quite  true,"  said  the  cowslip.  "From 
my  high  position  on  the  bank  I  have  again  and 
again  seen  bunches  of  bluebells  forsaken  by  chil- 
dren. How  is  it,  I  wonder?  It  is  not  as  if  they 
were  ugly;  although  blue  is  not  every  one's 
colour." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  cuckoo-spit  with  a  touch 
(150) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

of  sarcasm,  for  he  disliked  the  cowslip,  "it's  be- 
cause you  can't  make  tea  of  them." 

"No,"  said  the  oxlip,  who  was  looked  up  to  as 
something  of  a  sage  by  reason  of  his  strength  and 
his  many  eyes,  "it  is  because  bluebells  are  so  much 
more  beautiful  when  they  are  in  a  wood  among 
greenery  than  when  they  are  packed  together  in  a 
human  hand,  and  the  human  hand  suddenly  real- 
ises this  and  drops  them  in  disappointment." 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  bluebell  with  a  sigh  of 
content. 

"The  wonder,"  the  oxlip  continued  with  a  glance 
at  the  cuckoo-spit,  "is  that  some  flowers  are  ever 
picked  at  all." 

Silence  followed,  broken  by  a  little  sigh.  It  was 
the  dying  anemone's  last  breath. 

VI     Ups  and  Downs 

Once  upon  a  time  towards  the  end  of  June  the 
birds  gathered  together  to  compare  notes  as  to 
the  nesting  season.  It  is  a  regular  habit — a  kind 
of  stock-taking. 

"And  what  has  been  your  luck?"  the  owl  asked 
the  plover. 

"Half  and  half,"  said  the  plover.  "My  first 
clutch  of  eggs — beauties  they  were,  too — were 
found  by  a  farm  boy,  and  within  a  couple  of  days 
they  were  being  devoured  by  a  pretty  actress,  at 
one-and-six  apiece;  but  I  need  hardly  say,"  added 
the  plover  with  a  wink,  "that  it  was  not  the  little 
lady  herself  who  paid  for  them. 

(151) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"So  I  laid  again,"  the  plover  continued,  "and 
this  time  we  pulled  through ;  and  this  very  morning 
I've  been  giving  my  family  a  lesson  in  taking 
cover.  The  difficulty  is  to  make  them  keep  their 
silly  little  beaks  shut  when  they're  in  danger: 
they  will  cheep  so,  and  that,  of  course,  gives  the 
show  away.  Still,  chicks  will  be  chicks,  you 
know." 

"Yes  indeed,"  replied  the  owl;  "but  years  will 
put  that  right  only  too  successfully;"  and  both 
birds  sighed. 

"Yes,"  said  the  nightingale  to  the  woodpecker, 
"I  managed  capitally.  I  had  a  wonderful  season. 
Every  night  people  came  to  hear  me  sing;  Caruso 
couldn't  have  more  devoted  audiences.  We 
brought  up  a  healthy  family,  too,  with  strong 
musical  tendencies.  In  fact,  it  wasn't  till  yester- 
day that  anything  went  wrong;  and  that  wasn't 
exactly  a  calamity,  although  it  hurt  me  quite  a 
little  bit." 

"Tell  me,"  said  the  woodpecker. 

"With  pleasure,"  said  the  nightingale.  "It  was 
like  this:  I  flew  from  the  hedge  just  as  that  nice 
lady  at  the  Grange  came  along  with  her  little 
girl,  and  the  little  girl  saw  me  and,  as  children 
always  do, — you've  all  heard  them  time  and 
again, — asked  the  mother  what  that  pretty  brown 
bird  was  called.  Now  this,  you  must  understand, 
is  the  lady  who  has  been  leaning  out  of  her  win- 
dow every  night  all  through  June  just  to  hear  me 
sing;  she  has  even  written  a  poem  to  me;  but 
what  do  you  think  she  said  to  the  little  girl  in 
(152) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

reply?  'That  brown  bird,  darling?  That's  only  a 
sparrow.' " 

"You've  been  as  immoral  as  usual,  I  suppose?" 
said  the  thrush  to  the  cuckoo. 

"Quite,"  said  the  cuckoo,  "if  by  immorality 
you  mean  taking  furnished  lodgings  for  my  family 
instead  of  going  in  for  small  ownership,  like  you." 

"That's  not  wholly  what  I  meant,"  said  the 
thrush.  "There's  such  a  thing  as  taking  furnished 
apartments  and  paying  for  them,  and  there's  such 
another  thing  as  depositing  your  family  there  and 
never  showing  up  again." 

"Still,"  said  the  cuckoo,  "it's  a  very  small  fam- 
ily— only  one.  I  never  deposit  more  than  one  egg 
in  each  nest." 

"I  wish,  all  the  same,"  said  the  thrush,  "you'd 
tell  me  why  you  are  so  averse  from  erecting  a 
home  of  your  own." 

"I  don't  exactly  know,"  said  the  cuckoo,  "but 
I  think  it's  fastidiousness.  I  never  can  find  a  site 
to  suit  me.  Either  there's  no  view,  or  the  water's 
bad,  or  I  dislike  the  neighbours;  try  as  I  will,  I 
never  can  settle.     So  there  you  are!" 

"And  who,  may  I  ask,"  said  the  thrush,  "has 
had  the  honour  of  foster-mothering  your  illustrious 
offspring  this  season  ?" 

"I  selected  nuthatches,"  said  the  cuckoo;  "and 
they  weren't  half  disagreeable  about  it  either. 
While  as  for  their  own  children,  the  little  pigs, 
they  couldn't  have  taken  it  with  less  philosophy. 
Grumbled  day  and  night.  My  poor  darlings  were 
jolly  glad  when  they  were  fledged,  I  can  tell  you." 

(153) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  them?"  the 
thrush  asked. 

"I  haven't  made  up  my  mind,"  said  the  cuckoo. 
"What  do  you  advise?" 

"Apprentice  them  to  a  builder,"  said  the  thrush 
as  he  flew  away. 

VII     The  Alien 

Once  upon  a  time  a  poet  was  sitting  at  his  desk 
in  his  cottage  near  the  woods,  trying  to  write. 

It  was  a  hot  summer  day  and  great  fat  white 
clouds  were  sailing  across  the  sky.  He  knew  that 
outdoors  was  best,  but  still  he  dutifully  sat  on, 
pen  in  hand,  trying  to  write. 

Suddenly,  among  all  the  other  sounds  of  busy 
urgent  life  that  were  filling  the  warm  sweet  air, 
he  heard  the  new  and  unaccustomed  song  of  a 
bird:  new  and  unaccustomed,  that  is  to  say,  there, 
in  that  sylvan  retreat.  The  notes  poured  out, 
now  shrill,  now  mellow,  now  bubbling  like  musical 
water,  but  always  rich  with  the  joy  of  life,  the 
fulness  of  happiness.  Where  had  he  heard  it 
before?    What  bird  could  it  be? 

Hastening  out  with  his  field-glasses,  he  tracked 
the  sound  to  a  group  of  elm  trees  from  which  pro- 
ceeded sweeter  and  more  tumultuously  exultant 
song  than  they  had  ever  known ;  and  after  a  while 
he  discerned  among  the  million  leaves  a  little 
yellow  bird,  with  its  throat  trembling  with  rapture. 

But  the   poet  was   not  the  only  one   who  had 
heard  the  strange  melody. 
(154) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

"I  say,"  said  a  chaffinch  to  a  sparrow,  "did  you 
hear  that?" 

"What?"  inquired  the  sparrow,  who  was  busy 
collecting  food  for  a  very  greedy  family. 

"Why,  listen!"  said  the  chaffinch. 

"Bless  my  soul,"  said  the  sparrow,  "I  never 
heard  that  before." 

"It's  a  strange  bird,"  said  the  chaffinch;  "I've 
seen  it.     All  yellow." 

"All  yellow?"  said  the  sparrow.  "What  awful 
cheek !" 

"Yes,  isn't  it?"  replied  the  chaffinch.  "Can  you 
understand  what  it  says?" 

"Not  a  note,"  said  the  sparrow.  "Another  of 
those  foreigners,  I  suppose.  We  shan't  have  a  tree 
to  call  our  own  soon." 

"That's  so,"  said  the  chaffinch.  "There's  no  end 
to  them.  Nightingales  are  bad  enough,  grumbling 
all  night;  but  when  it  comes  to  yellow  birds — 
well." 

"Hello,"  said  a  passing  tit,  "what's  the  trouble 
now?" 

"Listen  !"  said  the  others. 

The  tit  was  all  attention  for  a  minute  while  the 
gay  triumphant  song  went  on. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "that's  a  rum  go.  Novel,  I  call 
it.     What  is  it?" 

"It's  a  yellow  foreigner,"  said  the  chaffinch. 

"What's  to  be  done  with  it?"  the  tit  asked. 

"There's  only  one  thing  for  self-respecting 
British  birds  to  do,"  said  the  chaffinch.     "Stop  it." 

(155) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"Absolutely,"  said  the  tit.  "I'll  go  and  find  some 
others." 

"Yes,  so  will  we,"  said  the  chaffinch;  and  off 
they  all  flew,  full  of  righteous  purpose. 

Meanwhile  the  canary  sang  on  and  on,  and  the 
poet  at  the  foot  of  the  elm  listened  with  delight. 

Suddenly,  however,  he  was  conscious  of  a  new 
sound,  a  noisy  chirping  and  harsh  squawking 
which  seemed  to  fill  the  air,  and  then  a  great 
cloud  of  small  angry  birds  assailed  the  tree.  For 
a  while  the  uproar  was  immense;  and  then,  out 
of  the  heart  of  the  tumult,  pursued  almost  to  the 
ground  where  the  poet  stood,  fell  the  body  of  a 
little  yellow  bird,  pecked  to  death  by  a  thousand 
avenging  furies. 

Seeing  the  poet,  they  made  off  in  a  pack,  still 
shrilling  and  squawking,  conscious  of  the  highest 
rectitude. 

The  poet  picked  up  the  poor  mutilated  body. 
It  was  still  warm  and  it  twitched  a  little,  but 
never  could  its  life  and  music  return. 

While  he  stood  thoughtfully  there  an  old 
woman,  holding  an  open  cage  and  followed  by 
half  a  dozen  children,  hobbled  along  the  path. 

"My  canary  got  away,"  she  said.  "Have  you 
seen  it  ?    It  flew  in  this  direction." 

"I'm  afraid  I  have  seen  it,"  said  the  poet,  and 
he  opened  his  hand. 

"My  little  pet !"  said  the  old  woman.     "It  sang 
so  beautifully,  and  it  used  to  feed  from  my  fingers. 
My  little  pet." 
(156) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

The  poet  returned  to  his  work.  "  'In  tooth  and 
claw,'  "  he  muttered  to  himself. 

VIII     Breathing  Space 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  old  pheasant — 
a  real  veteran  who  had  come  victorious  out  of  many 
battues.  Not  perhaps  wholly  unscathed,  for  his 
tail  was  no  longer  the  streaming  meteoric  plume 
that  it  once  had  been,  but  sound  in  wind  and 
limb. 

No  one  knew  his  lordship's  guests  so  well  as 
he,  so  often  had  he  seen  them  in  the  coverts: 
old  Sir  Mark,  who  had  an  arm-chair  at  the  angle 
of  the  two  best  drives;  Sir  Humphry,  with  his 
eternal  cigarette  in  the  long  gold  tube;  the  red- 
faced  Colonel,  who  always  shot  too  late;  the 
purple-faced  Major,  who  always  shot  too  soon; 
the  smiling  agent,  who  would  so  tactfully  disown 
a  bird  whenever  it  seemed  politic;  and  all  the  rest 
of  them. 

How  the  veteran  rocketer  had  escaped  I  cannot 
say,  but  shoot  after  shoot  found  him  still  robust 
and  elusive,  while  his  relations  were  falling  all 
around,  some,  to  their  dying  satisfaction,  thudding 
into  the  features  of  their  assassins. 

One  morning  three  young  pheasants  came  flying 
up  to  this  Nestor  in  a  state  of  nervous  excitement. 

"Quick !  quick !"  they  said,  "the  gentlemen  are 
leaving  the  Hall.     Tell  us  where  to  go  to  be  safe." 

"Go?"  said  the  old  bird.  "Don't  go  anywhere. 
Stay  where  you  are." 

(157) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"But  they're  coming  this  way/'  said  the  young 
pheasants. 

"Let  them  come/'  said  the  old  bird.  "There's 
no  danger.     Why  don't  you  use  your  ears?" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  they  asked. 

"Listen,"  said  the  old  bird.  "What  is  that 
sound?" 

"It's  too  gentle  for  guns/'  said  the  young  pheas- 
ants meditatively. 

"Yes,"  said  the  old  bird.  "That's  church  bells. 
No  one  shoots  on  Sunday.  They're  going  to  play 
golf." 

IX     Responsibility 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  ostrich  who, 
though  very  ostrichy,  was  even  more  of  an  egoist. 
He  thought  only  of  himself.  That  foible  is  not 
confined  to  ostriches,  but  this  particular  fowl — 
and  he  was  very  particular — was  notable  for  it. 
"Where  do  I  come  in?"  was  a  question  written 
all  over  him — from  his  ridiculous  and  inadequate 
head,  down  his  long  neck,  on  his  plump  fluffy 
body,  right  to  his  exceedingly  flat  and  over-sized 
feet. 

It  was  in  Afric's  burning  sand — to  be  precise, 
at  the  Cape — that,  on  the  approach  of  danger, 
the  fowl  in  question  secreted  his  self-centred  head, 
and  here  from  time  to  time  his  plumes  were  plucked 
from  him  for  purposes  of  trade. 

Now  it  happened  that  in  London  there  was  a 
theatre  given  up  to  a  season  of  foreign  opera,  and, 
(158) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

this  theatre  having  been  designed  by  one  of  those 
gifted  geniuses  so  common  among  theatre  archi- 
tects, it  followed  that  the  balcony  (into  which, 
of  course,  neither  the  architect  nor  the  manager 
for  whom  it  was  built  had  ever  strayed)  contained 
a  number  of  seats  from  which  no  view  of  the  stage 
was  visible  at  all — unless  one  stood  up,  and  then 
the  people  behind  were  deprived  of  the  fraction 
of  view  that  belonged  to  them,  while  to  move  one's 
head  to  one  side  or  open  a  programme  wide  was 
also  to  cut  the  line  of  vision  of  others.  This,  of 
course,  means  nothing  to  architects  or  managers. 
The  thought  that  jolly  anticipatory  parties  of 
simple  folk  bent  upon  a  happy  evening  may  be 
depressed  and  dashed  by  a  position  suffering  from 
such  disabilities  could  not  concern  architects  and 
managers,  for  some  imagination  would  be  needed  to 
understand  it. 

It  happened  that  on  a  certain  very  hot  night  in 
July  a  fat  lady  in  one  of  the  front  seats  not  only 
moved  about  but  fanned  herself  intermittently 
with  a  large  fan. 

Now  and  then  one  of  the  unfortunate  seat- 
holders  behind  her  remonstrated  gently  and  po- 
litely, remarking  on  the  privation  her  fan  was 
causing  to  others,  and  each  time  the  lady  smiled 
and  said  she  was  very  sorry  and  put  the  fan  down ; 
but  in  two  minutes  she  was  fluttering  it  again  as 
hard  as  ever,  and  the  stage  was  again  blotted  out. 

She  meant  well,  poor  lady;  but  it  was  very  hot, 
and  how  could  she  help  it  when  her  fan  was  made 
of  that  particular  ostrich's  feathers? 

(159) 


Cloud  and  Silver 


X     Man's  Limitations 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  trout  who  lived 
in  a  stream  much  frequented  by  anglers.  But 
though  he  was  of  some  maturity  and  had  in  his 
time  leapt  at  many  flies,  they  had  always  been 
living  insects  and  not  the  guileful  work  of  man. 
Hence,  although  well  informed  on  most  matters, 
of  the  hard  facts  of  fishing  he  knew  only  what 
he  had  been  told  by  such  of  his  friends  as  had 
been  hooked  and  had  escaped,  and  from  watching 
the  ancient  dentist  of  his  tribe  at  work  in  his 
surgery,  extracting  barbs  from  jaws.  For,  just  as 
children  stand  at  the  smithy  door  watching  the 
making  of  a  horseshoe,  so  do  the  younger  trout 
cluster  round  the  dentist  and  observe  him  at  his 
merciful  task. 

This  trout  was  in  his  way  a  bit  of  a  dandy,  and 
one  of  his  foibles  was  to  be  weighed  and  measured 
at  regular  intervals  (as  a  careful  man  does  at  his 
Turkish  bath),  so  that  he  might  know  how  things 
stood  with  him.  Fitness  was,  in  fact,  his  fetish ; 
hence,  perhaps,  his  long  immunity  from  such  snares 
as  half  Alnwick  exists  to  dangle  before  the  eyes  of 
undiscriminating  and  gluttonous  fish. 

But  to  each  of  us,  however  wise  or  cautious,  a 
day  of  peril  comes  soon  or  late.  It  happened 
that  on  the  very  afternoon  on  which  he  had  learned 
that  he  was  eleven  inches  and  a  quarter  long  and 
turned  the  scale  at  twelve  ounces,  the  trout  met 
with  a  misadventure  which  not  only  was  his  first 
(160) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

but  likely  to  be  his  last.  For  seeing  a  particularly 
appetising-looking  fly  on  the  surface  of  the  water, 
and  being  rather  less  carefully  observant  than 
usual,  he  took  it  at  a  gulp,  and  straightway  was 
conscious  of  a  sharp  pain  in  his  right  cheek  and  of 
a  steady  strain  on  the  same  part  of  his  person, 
pulling  him  upwards  out  of  the  stream. 

Outraged  and  in  agony,  he  dashed  backwards 
and  forwards,  kicked  and  wriggled;  but  all  in 
vain;  and  at  last,  worn  out  and  ashamed,  he  lay 
still  and  allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  quietly  from 
the  water  in  a  net  insinuated  beneath  him.  In 
another  moment  he  lay  on  the  bank  beneath  the 
admiring  and  excited  eyes  of  a  man. 

A  pair  of  hands  then  seized  him  and  the  hook 
was  extracted  from  his  right  cheek  with  very 
little  tenderness. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  trout's  good 
fairy  came  to  his  aid,  for  the  man  in  his  eager 
delight  placed  him  where  the  turf  sloped.  The 
trout  saw  the  friendly  stream  just  below,  gathered 
his  strength  for  a  last  couple  of  despairing  strug- 
gles, and  these  starting  him  on  the  downward 
grade  he  had  splashed  into  the  water  again  before 
the  angler  realised  his  loss. 

For  a  while  the  trout  lay  just  where  he  sank, 
motionless,  too  exhausted  to  swim  away,  listening 
languidly  to  what  was  being  said  about  him  on 
the  bank  by  the  disappointed  angler  to  a  friend 
who  had  joined  him.  At  length,  having  collected 
enough  power,  he  glided  to  safety. 

That  evening,  you  may  be  sure,  the  trout  had 

(161) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

plenty  to  tell  his  companions  when,  after  their 
habit,  they  discussed  the  day's  events  in  a  little 
crowd.  There  were  several  absentees  from  the 
circle,  and  two  or  three  fish  who  were  present 
had  swollen  jaws  where  hooks  had  caught  and 
broken  away;  while  one  actually  had  to  move 
about  and  eat  and  talk  with  a  foot  of  line  pro- 
ceeding from  his  mouth,  attached  to  a  hook  which 
none  of  the  efforts  of  the  profession  had  been  able 
to  dislodge. 

"But  the  thing  that  bothers  me,"  said  our  trout, 
as  he  finished  the  recital  of  his  adventures  for  the 
tenth  time,  "is  men's  curious  want  of  precision. 
For  while  I  was  lying  there  in  the  water  getting 
back  my  strength,  I  distinctly  heard  the  fellow 
who  had  had  me  in  his  hands  but  had  lost  me,  tell- 
ing his  friend  that  I  was  two  feet  four  if  I  was  an 
inch,  and  weighed  within  an  ounce  or  two  of  three 
pounds." 

XI     "East,  West,  Home's  Best" 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  little  girl  who 
was  taken  to  the  Zoo  by  her  father.  Her  father's 
tastes  were  wholly  scientific:  he  paid  several 
guineas  a  year  for  the  privilege  of  forgetting  to 
give  away  Sunday  tickets;  he  could  add  F.Z.S. 
to  his  name  if  he  liked;  and  when  he  went  in 
he  asked  for  a  pen  and  wrote  his  name  instead 
of  paying  a  shilling  like  inferior  folk.  But  the 
little  girl  was  curiously  unmoved  by  the  world's 
strange  fauna,  whether  elephants  or  water-beetles, 
(162) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

and  the  result  was  that  she  followed  listlessly  and 
fatigued  at  her  father's  heels  throughout  the  expe- 
dition, while  with  eager  eyes  he  scrutinised  this 
odd  creature  and  that:  from  the  very  post-impres- 
sionist mandril,  now  no  more,  to  the  distant  and 
incredible  camelopards. 

The  little  girl,  I  say,  was  listless  and  fatigued 
— for  all  but  two  minutes.  For  it  chanced  that 
as  they  walked  in  solemn  procession  through  the 
house  of  the  ostriches  and  the  emus  and  various 
cassowaries  named  after  their  discoverers,  they 
came  to  the  Patagonian  Cavy,  and  the  little  girl, 
loitering  at  his  bars,  uttered  a  gasp  of  delight,  for 
there,  all  unconcerned  and  greedy,  sat  a  tiny 
English  mouse,  eating  grain. 

The  mouse  looked  at  her  with  its  brilliant  eyes, 
and  nibbled  as  though  there  were  only  two  min- 
utes of  all  time  left  for  refreshment;  and,  secure 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  dividing  bars,  it  refused 
even  to  blink  when  she  flicked  her  hand  at  it.  She 
never  noticed  the  Patagonian  Cavy  at  all. 

"What  is  it?  What  is  it?"  her  father  impa- 
tiently inquired. 

"Hush!"  she  said.  "Do  come  back  and  look  at 
this  darling  little  mouse." 

"Pooh — a  mouse!"  said  her  father,  and  strode 
on,  eager  to  reach  the  elusive  apteryx. 

"Well,"  said  her  mother  when  the  little  girl  re- 
turned, "and  what  did  you  see  that  pleased  you 
best?"  and  the  little  girl  mentioned  the  mouse. 

And  what  of  the  mouse?  "You  may  call  your- 
self  a   Patagonian   Cavy,"  he   remarked   later   in 

(163) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

the  evening,  "but  it  doesn't  follow  that  you're 
everybody.  Did  you  notice  a  little  girl  with  a 
blue  bonnet  this  afternoon?  Just  after  tea-time? 
The  one  that  called  her  father  back  to  have  an- 
other look?  Well,  being  a  poor  benighted  Pata- 
gonian,  you  don't,  of  course,  know  what  she  said, 
but  it  wasn't  what  you  think  it  was,  oh  dear  no. 
It  wasn't  anything  about  you  and  your  remarkable 
beauty.  What  she  said  was,  'Do  come  back  and 
look  at  this  darling  little  mouse,'  which  merely," 
the  mouse  concluded,  "again  illustrates  an  old  con- 
tention of  mine  that  good  taste  is  not  an  adult 
monopoly." 

XII     Waste 

Once  upon  a  time  there  were  three  toadstools. 
They  were  not  the  fat  brown  ones  like  buns  with 
custard  underneath,  or  the  rich  crimson  ones  with 
white  spots,  or  the  delicate  purple  ones.  They 
were  merely  small  white  ones,  a  good  deal  more 
like  mushrooms  than  it  was  quite  fair  to  make 
them. 

They  sprang  up  within  a  few  inches  of  each 
other,  and  every  moment  added  to  their  stature, 
and,  as  they  grew,  they  discussed  life  in  all  its 
branches  and  planned  for  themselves  distinguished 
careers.  .  .  . 

The  eldest  was  not  more  than  eighteen  hours 

old,  which  is  a  good  age  for  a  toadstool,  when  an 

angry  boy  on  his  way  home  from  the  village  school 

kicked  him  into  smithereens  for  not  being  a  mush- 

(164) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

room — which  is  the  toadstool's  unpardonable  sin. 
The  younger  brothers,  watching  the  tragedy, 
vowed  to  fulfil  their  destiny  with  better  success 
than  that,  and  forthwith  they  prepared  a  placard 
that  ran  as  follows  (in  a  form  of  words  which 
was  not  perhaps  strictly  original) : 


To  the   Nobility  and  Gentrt 

OF     TOADLAND. 

YOU  WANT  THE  BEST  SEATS. 
WE  HAVE  THEM. 


Having  placed  this  notice  in  a  prominent  position, 
they  waited. 

For  some  time  nothing  happened,  and  then  an 
extremely  portly  and  aristocratic  toad,  with  eyes 
of  burning  amber  and  one  of  the  most  decorative 
waistcoats  out  of  Bond  Street,  waddled  towards 
the  expectant  brothers,  read  the  advertisement, 
and  sat  heavily  down  on  the  nearer  of  them.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  the  stool  was  crushed  to 
pieces  beneath  his  weight,  while  the  toad  himself 
sustained,  as  the  papers  say,  more  than  a  few 
contusions,  and  was  in  a  disgusting  temper. 

It  was  not  long  afterwards  that  a  small  girl, 
who  had  been  sent  out  by  her  mother  to  pick  mush- 
rooms, added  the  surviving  brother  to  her  basket 
with  a  little  cry  of  triumph.  "What  a  beauty!" 
she  said,  and  hurried  home  with  the  prize. 

But  her  mother  was  very  sharp  about  it.  "Do 
you  want  us  all  in  our  graves?"  she  snapped,  as 

(165) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

she  picked  the  toadstool  up  and  flung  it  into  the 
ash-bin. 

"And  not  even  the  satisfaction  of  poisoning  any 
one !"  he  murmured. 

XIII     Nature 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  king  who  failed 
to  please  his  subjects  and  was  in  consequence  in 
instant  peril.  Hurriedly  collecting  together  such 
treasures  as  he  could,  he  and  his  young  queen 
crossed  the  frontier  one  night  with  a  few  faithful 
retainers  and  settled  in  a  secluded  castle  in  a 
friendly  country. 

On  the  first  wet  day  the  young  queen  was  miss- 
ing. High  and  low  the  retainers  searched  for  her, 
and  at  last  she  was  discovered  in  the  middle  of  an 
open  space  in  the  forest,  holding  up  her  face  to 
the  rain. 

Horror-stricken,  they  hurried  to  her  aid;  but 
she  waved  them  back. 

"Do  let  me  stay  a  little  longer,"  she  pleaded. 
"All  my  life  I  have  longed  to  feel  the  rain  and  I 
was  never  allowed  to.  All  my  life  there  have 
been  coaches  and  umbrellas." 

And  again  the  little  queen  held  up  her  face  to 
the  drops. 

XIV     The  Rule 

Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  and  flourished  in 
a  small  city  a  worthy  man.     He  was  devoted  to 
his  native  place;  he  loved  its  streets  and  stones, 
(166) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

its  strange  odours,  its  smoke,  its  high  rates,  its 
indifferent  water  supply,  its  clubs  and  cafes  and 
everything  about  it.  Nothing  could  induce  him 
to  leave  it  even  for  the  briefest  period.  In  vain 
did  the  railway  companies  spread  their  Holiday 
Arrangements  before  his  eyes;  he  returned  with 
the  more  satisfaction  to  his  favourite  seat  over- 
looking the  central  square. 

And  then  one  day  the  king  of  that  country, 
who  was  full  of  capricious  impulses,  issued  a  de- 
cree that  no  one  in  this  little  city  should  ever 
leave  it  again. 

And  immediately  the  worthy  man  began  to  be 
consumed  with  a  longing  for   travel. 


XV     The  Uses  of  Criticism 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  innkeeper  who, 
strange  to  say,  was  unable  to  make  both  ends 
meet.  Nothing  that  he  tried  was  any  use:  he 
even  placed  in  the  windows  a  notice  to  the  effect 
that  his  house  was  "under  entirely  new  manage- 
ment," but  that  too  was  in  vain.  So  in  despair 
he  consulted  a  wise  woman. 

"It  is  quite  simple,"  she  said,  as  she  pocketed 
her  fee.  "You  must  change  the  name  of  your 
inn." 

"But  it  has  been  'The  Golden  Lion'  for  cen- 
turies," he  replied. 

"You  must  change  the  name,"  she  said.     "You 

(167) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

must  call  it  'The  Eight  Bells';  and  you  must 
have  a  row  of  seven  hells  as  the  sign." 

"Seven?"  he  said;  "but  that's  absurd.  What 
will  that  do?" 

"Go  home  and  see,"  said  the  wise  woman. 

So  he  went  home  and  did  as  she  told  him. 

And  straightway  every  wayfarer  who  was  pass- 
ing paused  to  count  the  bells,  and  then  hurried 
into  the  inn  to  point  out  the  mistake,  each  appar- 
ently believing  himself  to  be  the  only  one  who  had 
noticed  it,  and  all  wishing  to  refresh  themselves 
for  their  trouble;  motorists,  observing  the  discrep- 
ancy as  they  flew  by,  stopped  their  chauffeurs, 
and,  with  the  usual  enormous  difficulty,  got  them 
to  go  back;  and  the  joke  found  its  way  into  the 
guide-books. 

The  result  was  that  the  innkeeper  waxed  fat, 
lost  his  health  and  made  his  fortune. 


XVI     Joints  in  the  Armour 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  father  of  five 
who,  living  as  he  did  in  constant  fear  of  their 
inquiring  minds,  took  home  with  him  a  fat  volume 
called  The  Parents'  Book,  because  in  the  advertise- 
ments it  claimed  to  answer  children's  questions 
by  the  thousand. 

"Now,    you    little    demons,"    he    said    genially 

that  evening,  "gather  round  and  do  your  worst; 

your  father's  up  to  any  trick.     Ask  me  anything 

you  like  and  I'll  give  you  the  answer*"  and   he 

(168) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

opened  The  Parents'  Booh.  "It  is  too  much  to 
hope,  dear  Eric,"  he  added,  turning  to  the  eldest, 
"that  there  is  nothing  that  you  particularly  want 
to  know  to-day  ?" 

"Yes,"  Eric  said  with  disconcerting  quickness, 
"it  is,  father.     What  does  'Piccadilly'  mean?" 

Now  this  was  something  that  the  father  had 
himself  always  wanted  to  know,  so  he  turned  up 
the  index  with  some  satisfaction  and  more  con- 
fidence. But  no  "Piccadilly."  Then  he  turned 
to  "London"  and  was  referred  to  page  491.  "Lon- 
don is  not  only  the  largest  but  also  the  richest  and 
busiest  city  in  the  world,"  it  began.  But  nothing 
about  Piccadilly  at  all! 

Eric  retired  unsatisfied,  and  Cuthbert  took  the 
floor.  "Please,  father,"  he  said,  "what  became 
of  the  wine  after  the  Duke  of  Clarence  was 
drowned  in  it?" 

No  "Clarence"  in  the  index. 

"I  expect  it  was  given  to  the  poor,"  said  Cuth- 
bert philosophically,  and  with  the  lowest  opinion 
of  reference  books  he  too  retired. 

"Now,  Patricia?"  the  father  said  to  his  eldest 
girl.  Patricia  being  a  great  reader  he  expected  a 
literary  poser.    As  it  happened,  he  got  it. 

"What  was  the  good  news  brought  from  Ghent 
to  Aix?"  she  asked. 

The  index  this  time  seemed  more  promising, 
for  it  gave — 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett     .         .        ..     551 

Robert 552 

(169) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

but  though  the  poem  was  mentioned  nothing  was 
said  as  to  the  very  reasonable  information  de- 
sired. 

Patricia  therefore  withdrew  to  make  room  for 
Horace,  who  merely  asked  who  discovered  that 
eggs  had  to  be  boiled.  The  father  knew  that  it 
was  useless  to  hope  for  light  there,  so  he  gave 
it  up  at  once.  "Arising  out  of  that  question," 
Horace  therefore  added  (in  his  own  juvenile 
paraphrase),  "may  I  ask  who  first  boiled  a  pot?" 
but  the  learned  disquisition  on  "fire"  provided  by 
the  volume  did  not  go  into  that. 

Things  were  getting  very  bad.  Here  were  four 
of  the  little  brood  unanswered  and  the  credit  of 
literature  was  getting  desperately  thin. 

"Now,  Augusta,"  he  said  to  the  youngest,  "can't 
you  think  of  some  problem  that  we — this  volume 
and  I — can  solve  for  you?' 

"Yes,"  she  said  with  a  suspicious  wriggle. 
"Surely,  father,  more  than  two  fleas  got  into  the 
Ark,  didn't  they?" 


XVII     The  Resolute  Spirit 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  in  a  Suffolk  vil- 
age  of  South  Highbolt  a  Tudor  grange.  It 
was  richly  timbered,  with  vine  leaves  carved  on  its 
barge-boards,  and  it  had  a  great  hall  with  a  roof- 
tree  springing  from  a  cross-beam  of  massive  stout- 
ness, and  a  very  beautiful  pilastered  gallery,  and 
altogether  it  was  just  the  house,  although  damp 
(170) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

and  insanitary,  to  send  poetical  travellers  into  rap- 
tures. But  it  had  come  upon  evil  days,  and  having 
been  bought  cheaply  by  a  speculative  London 
builder  had  been  sold  by  him  at  an  enormous  profit 
to  an  American  plutocrat,  and  was  now  being 
taken  down  with  great  care,  every  brick,  stone,  and 
beam  numbered,  to  be  re-erected  in  the  American 
millionaire's  estate  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  as 
a  garden  hostel  for  his  guests,  and  a  perpetual  re- 
minder of  a  country  older  and  more  romantic  than 
his  own. 

It  happened  that,  like  most  Tudor  granges,  this 
one  was  haunted,  and  had  been  ever  since  the  year 
1592,  when  a  wealthy  heir  apparent,  named  Geof- 
frey, had  been  poisoned  with  a  dish  of  toadstools 
by  his  spendthrift  younger  brother,  more  than 
anxious  to  upset  the  exasperating  financial  provi- 
sions of  primogeniture,  and  their  sister  Alice  had 
unconsciously  partaken  of  the  same  dish.  From 
that  time  onward  Alice  and  Geoffrey,  as  well  as 
could  be  managed  in  their  disembodied  state,  had 
devoted  themselves  to  the  old  home;  and  you  may 
then  imagine  their  dismay  on  seeing  its  component 
parts  gradually  being  packed  into  a  series  of 
trucks,  to  be  drawn  to  some  distant  spot  by  a 
traction-engine.  To  demolition  pure  and  simple 
they  were  accustomed.  Many  were  the  neighbour- 
ing mansions,  most  of  them  also  haunted,  which 
they  had  seen  pulled  down,  and  not  a  few  rebuilt; 
but  it  was  a  new  experience  to  observe  a  house 
bodily  removed  they  knew  not  whither,  nor  could 
they  discover.    In  vain  were  other  ghosts  consulted ; 

(171) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

none  knew,  not  even  the  youngest.  The  point  then 
was,  what  was  to  be  done?  for  Geoffrey  and  Alice 
were  divided  in  opinion  as  to  their  duty,  Alice 
considering  that  her  first  allegiance  was  to  the 
structure  and  its  successive  imprudent  occupants, 
and  Geoffrey  that  his  was  to  the  site. 

"It  is  our  family  home,"  said  Alice;  "marry, 
we  must  go  with  it,  no  matter  whither." 

"Nay,  sister,"  said  Geoffrey,  "that  were  foolish. 
We  are  Suffolk  ghosts — more  than  Suffolk,  South 
Highbolt  ghosts — and  here  we  ought  to  stay.  Sup- 
pose it  is  going  to  London — how  then?  You  are 
far  too  simple  and  countrified  for  the  great  city. 
The  others  would  laugh  at  you." 

"Let  them,"  said  Alice,  "I  care  not." 

"Wait  till  you  hear  them,"  said  Geoffrey,  "all 
sensitive  as  you  are!  Anyway,  here  I  mean  to 
stay." 

"But  how  foolish!"  said  Alice;  "for  surely, 
Geoffrey,  you  would  not  haunt  nothing?  What 
use  could  that  be?  How  can  you  make  nothing 
creak?  or  blow  out  candles  when  there  are  none? 
or  moan  along  passages  that  do  not  exist?  or 
wring  your  hands  in  South  Highbolt  at  casements 
that  are  elsewhere?" 

"True,"  replied  Geoffrey,  "but  I  can  carry  on 
the  mechanism  of  haunting  just  the  same.  I  can 
gibber  where  the  old  home  used  to  stand,  as  many 
another  honest  Suffolk  ghost,  aye,  and  Essex  and 
Norfolk  ghosts  too,  I  wis,  are  doing  at  this  mo- 
ment. I  belong  to  the  village  and  shall  stay  here. 
I  hate  travel.  No  doubt  to  create  anything  like 
(172) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

the  sensation  to  which  I  have  been  accustomed 
will  be  difficult,  but  I  can  do  my  best.  Even  the 
poorest  efforts,  however,  will  be  better  than  accom- 
panying a  traction-engine  along  a  public  road  in 
broad  day — verily  a  degrading  occupation  for  the 
unlaid  spirit  of  a  fair  lady." 

"Circumstances  alter  cases,"  Alice  replied.  "I 
conceive  my  duty  to  be  to  yonder  wood  and  stone. 
Nothing  shall  shake  me.  Wherever  they  go,  there 
shall  I  go  also." 

"And  I  too,"  said  Geoffrey,  "am  adamant. 
South  Highbolt  is  my  home  and  never  will  I  de- 
sert it." 

It  therefore  happened  that  when  the  time  came 
for  the  road-train  to  leave,  every  vestige  of  the 
house  being  packed  away,  Alice  took  a  tearful 
farewell  of  her  brother  and  crept  dismally  into  the 
last  truck  with  a  bibulous  brakesman,  and  so 
broken  was  her  spirit  at  leaving  home,  or  such  the 
completeness  of  his  potations,  that  she  caused  him 
not  a  single  tremor  all  the  way  to  Harwich,  where 
a  vessel  was  waiting  to  convey  the  grange  to 
America.  Not  until  Alice  grasped  the  fact  that  a 
sea  voyage  was  before  her,  and  took  up  her  abode 
in  the  stuffy  hold  as  near  to  the  roof-tree  as  she 
could  nestle,  did  her  courage  for  the  first  time  begin 
to  fail,  for  she  was  a  bad  sailor;  but  once  again 
duty  triumphed.  .  .  . 

It  was  on  the  first  night  on  which  the  re-erected 
Tudor  grange  was  opened  as  a  hostel  for  the  mil- 
lionaire's guests  that  Alice  was  placed  in  the  de- 
lectable position  of  realising  that  the  consciousness 

(173) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

of  having  been  virtuous  is  not  always  the  only  re- 
ward of  a  virtuous  deed;  for  she  had  not  waved 
her  arms  more  than  twice,  nor  uttered  more  than 
three  blood-curdling  shrieks,  when  Professor 
Uriah  K.  Bleeter,  one  of  the  most  determined  foes 
of  the  American  Society  of  Psychical  Research 
and  all  its  works,  sprang  through  his  bedroom 
window  to  the  ground  below,  taking  with  him  the 
sash  and  some  dozens  of  diamond  panes. 

And  now  the  Tudor  grange  is  even  emptier 
than  it  had  been  for  so  long  in  England,  and  the 
millionaire  who  bought  it  lives  entirely  on  his 
yacht. 

XVIII     In  Extremis 

Once  upon  a  time  a  Nut  lay  dying.  He  was 
twenty-five.  He  had  had  a  good  time — too  good — 
and  the  end  was  near. 

There  was  no  hope,  but  alleviation  was  pos- 
sible. "Is  there  anything,"  he  was  asked,  "that 
you  would  like?" 

He  was  plucky  and  prepared  for  the  worst. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I'd  like  to  know  what  I've 
spent  since  I  was  twenty.  Could  that  be  ar- 
ranged ?" 

"Easily,"  they  said. 

"Good,"  he  replied.  "Then  tell  me  what  I've 
spent  on  my  bally  old  stomach — on  food." 

"On  food,"  they  replied.  "We  find  that  you 
have  spent  on  yourself  an  average  of  a  pound  a 
(174) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

day   for   food.      For   five   years   that   is,  roughly, 
£1825." 

"Roughly?"  said  the  Nut. 

"Yes.  Counting  one  leap  year,  it  would  be 
£1826.  But  then  you  have  entertained  with  some 
freedom,  bringing  the  total  to  £3075." 

"Yes,"  said  the  Nut.  "And  what  about 
drinks  ?" 

"We  find,"  was  the  reply,  "that  on  drinks  your 
average  has  been  three  pounds  a  day,  or  about 
£5475  in  all." 

"Good  heavens!"  said  the  Nut.  "What  a  noble 
thirst!     And  clothes?" 

"The  item  of  clothes  comes  to  £940,"  they  said. 

"Only  three  figures !"  said  the  Nut.  "How  did 
I  come  to  save  that  odd  £60,  I  wonder?" 

"Not  by  any  idea  of  economy,"  they  replied. 
"Merely  a  want  of  time." 

"And  let's  see,"  said  the  Nut,  "what  else  does 
one  spend  money  on?  Oh  yes,  taxis.  How  much 
for  taxis?" 

"Your  taxis,"  they  said,  "work  out  at  seven 
shillings  a  day,  or  £639-  2s.  Od." 

"And  tips?"  the  Nut  inquired. 

"Tips,"  they  said,  "come  to  £456." 

The  Nut  lay  back  exhausted,  and  oxygen  was 
administered.     He  was  very  near  the  end. 

"One  thing  more,"  he  managed  to  ask.  "What 
have  I  paid  in  cloak-room  fees  for  my  hat  and 
stick?" 

"Only  £150,"  they  said. 

But  it  was  enough:  he  fell  back  dead. 

(175) 


Cloud  and  Silver 


XIX     Progress 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  little  boy  who 
asked  his  father  if  Nero  was  a  bad  man. 

"Thoroughly  bad,"  said  his  father. 

Once  upon  a  time,  many  years  later,  there  was 
another  little  boy  who  asked  his  father  if  Nero 
was  a  bad  man. 

"I  don't  know  that  one  should  exactly  say  that," 
replied  his  father:  "we  ought  not  to  be  quite  so 
sweeping.  But  he  certainly  had  his  less  felicitous 
moments." 

XX     Moses 

Once  upon  a  time  there  dwelt,  in  the  city  of 
Paris,  in  an  appartement  not  very  distant  from  the 
fitoile  or  Place  of  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  two  little 
boys.  They  were  American  boys,  and  they  had 
a  French  governess.  In  addition  to  this  they  were 
twins,  but  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  Moses. 
I  relate  the  fact  merely  to  save  you  the  trouble 
of  visualising  each  little  boy  separately.  All  that 
you  need  do  is  to  imagine  one  and  then  double 
him. 

Well,  after  their  lessons  were  done  these  two 
little  boys  used  to  go  for  a  walk  with  their  gov- 
erness in  the  Champs  filysees,  or  the  Pare  Mon- 
ceau,  or  even  into  the  Bois  itself,  wherever,  in  fact, 
the  long-legged  children  of  Paris  take  the  air;  and 
no  doubt  as  they  walked  they  put  a  thousand 
(176) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

Ollendorffian  questions  to  Mademoiselle,  who  had 
all  her  work  cut  out  for  her  in  answering,  first  on 
one  side  and  then  on  the  other.  That  also  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  story,  except  in  so  far  as  it 
shows  you  the  three  together. 

Well,  on  one  morning  in  the  spring  one  of  the 
little  boys  saw  something  tiny  struggling  in  the 
gutter,  and,  dragging  the  others  to  it,  he  found 
that  it  was  a  young  bird  very  near  its  end.  The 
bird  had  probably  fluttered  from  the  nest  too 
soon,  and  nothing  but  the  arrival  of  the  twins 
saved  its  life. 

"Voila  un  moineau!"  said  Mademoiselle, 
"moineau"  being  the  French  nation's  odd  way 
of  saying  sparrow;  and  the  little  creature  was 
picked  up  and  carried  tenderly  home;  and  since 
sparrows  do  not  fall  from  the  heavens  every  day 
to  add  interest  to  the  life  of  small  American  boys 
in  Paris,  this  little  bird  had  a  royal  time.  A 
basket  was  converted  into  a  cage  for  it  and  fitted 
with  a  perch,  and  food  and  drink  were  pressed 
upon  it  continually.  It  was  indeed  the  basket 
that  was  the  cause  of  the  bird's  name,  for  as  one 
of  the  twins,  who  was  a  considerable  Biblical 
scholar,  very  appositely  remarked,  "We  ought  to 
call  it  Moses  because  we  took  it  out  of  the  water 
and  put  it  in  a  thing  made  of  rushes."  Moses 
thus  gained  his  name  and  his  place  in  the  estab- 
lishment; and  every  day  he  grew  not  only  in 
vigour  but  in  familiarity.  After  a  little  while  he 
would  hop  on  the  twins'  fingers;  after  that  he 
proceeded   to   Mademoiselle's   shoulder;    and   then 

(177) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

he  sat  on  the  desk  where  the  boys  did  their  little 
lessons  and  played  the  very  dickens  with  their 
assiduity. 

In  short  Moses  rapidly  became  the  most  im- 
portant person  in  the  house. 

And  then,  after  two  or  three  weeks,  the  in- 
evitable happened.  Some  one  left  a  window  open, 
and  Moses,  now  an  accomplished  aviator,  flew 
away.  All  befriended  birds  do  this  sooner  or 
later,  but  rarely  do  they  leave  behind  them  such 
a  state  of  grief  and  desolation  as  Moses  did.  The 
light  of  the  twins'  life  was  extinguished,  and  even 
Mademoiselle,  who,  being  an  instructor  of  youth, 
knew  the  world  and  had  gathered  fortitude,  was 
conscious  of  a  blank. 

So  far,  I  am  aware,  this  narrative  has  not  taxed 
credulity.  But  now  comes  the  turning-point 
where  you  will  require  all  your  powers  of  belief. 
A  week  or  so  after  their  bereavement,  as  the 
twins  and  their  governess  were  out  for  their  walk, 
scanning,  according  to  their  new  and  perhaps  only 
half-conscious  habit,  with  eager  glances  every 
group  of  birds  for  their  beloved  renegade,  one 
of  them  exclaimed,  "Look,  there's  Moses !" 

To  most  of  us  one  sparrow  is  exactly  like  an- 
other, but  this  little  boy's  eye,  trained  by  affection, 
did  not  err,  for  Moses  it  truly  was.  There  he  was, 
pecking  away  on  the  grass  with  three  or  four 
companions. 

"Moses !"  called  the  twins ;  "Moses !"  called 
the  governess,  "Moses !  Moses !" — moving  a  little 
nearer  and  nearer  all  the  time.  And  after  a  few 
(178) 


Once  Upon  a  Time 

moments'  indecision,  to  their  intense  rapture  Moses 
flew  up  and  settled  in  his  old  place  on  Made- 
moiselle's shoulder  and  very  willingly  allowed 
himself  to  be  held  and  carried  home  again. 

This  is  a  free  country  (more  or  less)  and  any 
one  is  at  liberty  to  disbelieve  my  story  and  even 
to  add  that  I  am  an  Ananias  of  peculiar  ripeness, 
but  the  story  is  true  none  the  less,  and  very  pretty 
too,  don't  you  think? 

And  could  it,  I  have  been  wondering,  ever  have 
happened  had  it  not  been  for  M.  Pol?  You  know 
M.  Pol,  of  course.  M.  Pol  is  that  engaging  and 
not  too  dandiacal  old  gentleman  who  for  years  and 
years  fed  the  sparrows,  and  chaffed  them,  and 
scolded  them,  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries. 
Whether  or  no  he  still  carries  on  his  gracious  work 
I  cannot  say;  he  was  looking  very  frail  when  last 
I  saw  him,  a  little  before  the  war;  but  is  it  too 
much  to  hold  that  his  influence  still  persists,  in 
view  of  the  extraordinary  events  which  I  have  just 
related,  and  which,  as  I  said  before,  are  true? 
One  must  not  claim  too  much  for  M.  Pol  or  under- 
rate the  intelligence  of  Moses.  None  the  less  I 
feel  strongly  that,  had  it  not  been  for  M.  Pol's 
many  years  of  sympathetic  intercourse  with  those 
gamins  of  the  air,  the  Parisian  sparrows,  and  all 
his  success  in  building  that  most  difficult  of  bridges 
— the  one  uniting  bird  and  man — the  deeds  of 
Moses  might  never  have  come  before  the 
historian. 


(179) 


IN  A  NEW  MEDIUM 
THE  OLD  COUNTRY;  OR,  WRIT  IN  WAX 

FOR  most  authors,  and  indeed  all  who  confide 
themselves  to  prose  and  never  dabble  in  words 
for  music,  the  busy  bee  performs  a  large  part  of 
his  labours  in  vain.  In  other  words,  they  have 
no  use  for  those  preparations  of  wax  with  which 
gramophone  records  are  made.  But  now  and  then 
even  a  writer  of  prose  is  susceptible  to  aberration, 
and  it  was  during  one  such  mood,  not  so  long  ago, 
that  the  idea  came  to  me  to  put  together  some 
couplets  which,  when  repeated  by  the  gramophone 
with  certain  realistic  accessories,  might  have  the 
effect  of  reminding  distant  emigrants  of  the  Eng- 
land that  they  have  left,  possibly  fill  them  with 
home-sickness,  and  incidentally  be  of  assistance  to 
me  in  adding  butter  to  bread. 

At  the  first  blush  one  might  say  that  such  a  mo- 
tive savoured  if  not  of  cupidity  at  any  rate  of  in- 
humanity; but  I  believe  that  people  derive  more 
pleasure  from  a  pensive  melancholy,  a  brooding, 
lingering  wistfulness,  than  from  many  positive  de- 
lights: and  it  was  this  seductive  nostalgia  that  my 
verses  were  designed  to  bring  to  them. 

The  suggestion  came  to  me,  suddenly,  as  I  list- 
ened in  a  music  hall  to  a  French  gentleman  in 
(180) 


In  a  New  Medium 

evening  dress  whose  special  genius  lay  in  the  imi- 
tation of  birds.  Such  was  the  fidelity  with  which 
he  trilled  forth  the  notes  of  the  nightingale  on  the 
cold  January  evening  on  which  I  heard  him,  that 
he  made  the  thought  of  June  almost  unbearable: 
and  upon  that  pain  of  my  own  I  resolved  to  try 
and  erect  an  edifice  of  not  disagreeable  unhappi- 
ness  in  others. 

Talking  over  the  project  with  one  who  is  behind 
the  scenes  in  Edisonian  mysteries,  I  obtained  my 
first  glimpses  into  the  rules  that  govern  the  activi- 
ties of  the  talking  machine.  Possibly  these  facts 
are  commonplaces  to  the  reader;  but  to  me  they 
were  startling  novelties.  Each  record,  he  told  me, 
has  to  be  of  a  definite  length,  of  which  two  minutes 
is  the  extreme,  and  whatever  words  and  effects  I 
was  aiming  at  must  therefore  be  compressed  into 
that  space.  This  meant  an  instant  modification 
of  my  scheme,  for  I  had  planned  no  more  than 
enough  material  for  one  minute;  and  it  was  then 
that  the  skylark  fluttered  into  the  heavenly  choir, 
and  the  catalogue  of  the  country's  charms,  as  you 
will  shortly  see,  divided  itself  into  day  and  eve- 
ning. 

The  next  thing  that  the  expert  told  me  was  that 
one  must  not  be  too  clever. 

Here  of  course  I  bowed,  murmuring  something 
about  impossibility. 

By  too  clever,  he  went  on,  without  paying  any 
attention  to  my  deprecation,  he  meant  too  literary. 
The  gramophone  public  was  not  absurdly  discrimi- 
nating:  the  appeal  being  through   the   ear   alone, 

(181) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

and  a  swift  one  at  that,  there  must  be  no  am- 
biguity, no  preciosity;  each  word  must  do  its  own 
work,  and  do  it  emphatically. 

I  agreed,  and  was  conscious  again  of  that  feel- 
ing of  respect  which  always  comes  upon  me  in  the 
presence  of  one  of  those  rare  masterful  beings 
who  know  what  the  public  want. 

"Why  not,"  he  went  on,  "complete  the  picture? 
Call  the  first  part  'The  Village,'  and  then  provide 
a  city  pendant  for  the  other  side  of  the  record,  so 
that  the  town-dweller  as  well  as  the  country- 
dweller  may  be  roped  in?"     (The  italics  are  his.) 

"Why  not  indeed?"  I  replied. 

"With  city  effects  which  will  occur  to  you,"  he 
said. 

"Of  course,"  said  I,  and  walked  thoughtfully 
away,  realising  once  more  how  dangerous  a  mat- 
ter is  impulse.  Why  had  I  ever  embarked  on  this 
scheme?  Why  had  I  abandoned  my  old  friend 
prose?    Why  was  I  flirting  with  science?  .  .  . 

None  the  less  as  I  went  on  I  found  a  certain 
amusement  in  writing  verses  for  wax,  and  gradu- 
ally "The  Old  Country"  was  finished — Part  I. 
The  Village,  and  Part  II.  The  Town — and  ready 
to  be  converted  into  magic. 

To  what  extent  gramophone  recording  rooms 
differ  I  cannot  say;  but  the  one  in  which  "The 
Old  Country"  was  prepared  is  on  a  top  floor  in 
the  city  of  London,  with  large  windows  through 
which  more  than  one  of  Wren's  spires  may  be 
seen.  In  it,  when  I  arrived,  were  gathered  the 
orchestra,  the  conductor,  the  chief  operator  (in  a 
(182) 


In  a  New  Medium 

long  surgical  coat),  the  elocutionist  who  was  to 
deliver  the  lines  into  a  metal  funnel,  the  French 
gentleman  with  an  aviary  in  his  throat,  my  friend 
the  expert,  and  a  number  of  supernumeraries  for 
London's  cries  and  tumult — some  of  which  indeed 
we  could  then  hear  by  opening  the  window,  but 
not  loudly  enough  for  our  dramatic  purpose. 

Every  one  seemed  composed  and  at  peace  with 
the  world,  except  the  elocutionist,  who  paced  the 
floor  muttering  my  poor  verses  over  to  himself  in 
an  agony  that  did  me  no  credit;  myself,  who 
could  not  but  be  infected  by  his  distress;  and 
the  French  gentleman,  who  wandered  disconso- 
lately among  the  company,  talking  to  no  one,  but 
occasionally  refreshing  his  memory  as  to  the  dif- 
ferences of  note  between  the  two  birds  he  was 
engaged  to  reproduce :  certainly  an  important  point 
to  settle  definitely  before  we  began. 

Of  the  gramophone  itself  nothing  was  visible, 
for  the  recording  was  done  behind  the  partition. 
Penetrating  thither,  I  found  that  it  consists  of 
nothing  but  a  revolving  disk  of  yellowish  brown 
wax,  into  which  a  needle,  vibrating  to  the  elocu- 
tionist's voice  and  my  wonderful  poetry,  was  to 
plough  furrows,  throwing  up  a  churning  wake  of 
gossamer  shavings  as  it  did  so;  these  furrows, 
which  are  of  every  shade  of  depth,  by  Edisonian 
black  art  registering  and  subsequently  giving  forth 
again  my  exact  syllables  for  all  the  world  to  hear. 
But  how  or  why  I  shall  never  understand. 

I  have  vague  recollections  of  an  explanatory 
lecture  on  the   subject   from   the   chief   operator; 

(183) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

but  science  being  a  sealed  book  to  me,  I  can  pass 
none  of  its  secrets  on.  The  telephone  and  the 
telegraph,  the  "Marconigraph  and  the  automatic 
piano-player,  will  never  be  anything  but  the  dark- 
est enigmas ;  and  almost  before  any  of  them  comes, 
for  marvellousness,  the  gramophone.  But  to  the 
chief  operator  in  his  surgical  coat  its  simplicity  is 
a  matter  for  laughter.  So  different  are  we  all! 
Of  such  variety  is  human  intelligence! 

The  three  or  four  rehearsals,  for  time  signals 
and  so  forth,  being  completed,  we  began.  This 
was  the  procedure.  First,  absolute  silence.  Then 
the  electric  lamp  on  the  operator's  partition  turn- 
ing to  red,  the  orchestra  played  a  bar  or  so  of 
"Home,  Sweet  Home,"  into  which  the  elocutionist, 
who  had  now  taken  off  not  only  his  coat  but  his 
collar,  for  the  better  grappling  with  my  muse, 
broke  with  the  following  lines: 

O  England,  country  of  my  heart's  desire, 
Land  of  the  hedgerow  and  the  village  spire, 
Land  of  thatched  cottages  and  murmuring  bees, 
And  wayside  inns  where  one  may  take  one's  ease, 
Of  village  greens  where  cricket  may  be  played, 
And  fat  old  spaniels  sleeping  in  the  shade — 
O  homeland,  far  away  across  the  main, 
How  would  I  love  to  see  your  face  again! — 
Your  daisied  meadows  and  your  grassy  hills, 
Your  primrose  banks,  your  parks,  your  tinkling  rills, 
Your  copses  where  the  purple  bluebells  grow, 
Your  quiet  lanes  where  lovers  loiter  so, 
Your  cottage-gardens  with  their  wallflowers'  scent, 
Your  swallows  'neath  the  eaves,  your  sweet  content! 
And  'mid  the  fleecy  clouds  that  o'er  you  spread, 
Listen,  the  skylark  singing  overhead  .  .  . 
(184) 


In  a  New  Medium 

It  was  here  that  my  part  of  the  production  be- 
gan, for  the  French  gentleman,  whose  understand- 
ing of  the  whole  matter  seemed  still  exceedingly 
misty,  in  spite  of  rehearsals  and  instructions,  had 
been  placed  wholly  in  my  charge,  and  at  the  given 
moment  I  was  to  lead  him  as  close  as  might  be  to 
the  funnel,  tap  him,  as  agreed,  on  the  shoulder, 
and  thus  let  loose  his  skylark.  Had  there  been 
no  other  bird,  all  would  have  been  simple,  but  the 
presence  also  of  the  nightingale,  in  the  same 
receptacle,  was  an  embarrassment;  and  twice 
through  nervousness  he  liberated  the  wrong 
chorister,  and  we  had  to  begin  again,  while  once  I 
myself  ruined  an  otherwise  perfect  record  by  ex- 
claiming, when  I  thought  it  all  over,  "Bravo!" 
and  slapping  the  French  gentleman's  back — this 
unfortunate  remark  attaching  itself  inseparably  to 
the  recitation. 

It  was  not,  I  ought  to  say,  exactly  at  the  end  of 
the  verse  that  the  skylark  was  to  begin;  but  at 
the  word  "spread,"  the  last  line  being  spoken 
through  the  bird's  notes.  After  that  the  blithe 
spirit  had  it  all  its  own  way  for  about  ten  seconds, 
when  I  tapped  Monsieur  sharply  once  more  and 
drew  him  swiftly  and  silently  away,  while  the 
reciter  took  his  place  at  the  funnel  and  with  a 
sigh  of  satisfaction  completed  the  first  verse  with 
these  words: 

That's  the  old  country,  that's  the  old  home! 
You  never  forget  it  wherever  you  roam. 

(185) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

Instantly  the  orchestra  plunged  into  the  opening 
of  "The  Swanee  River,"  and  again  the  reciter 
began,  while  I  clung  to  the  French  gentleman  in 
an  agony,  for  the  only  expression  on  his  counte- 
nance was  one  of  determination  to  be  a  nightingale, 
whereas  that  on  no  account  must  he  become  until 
the  words  "they  and  I,"  almost  at  the  end.  With 
my  arm  firmly  through  his  I  awaited  in  a  cold 
perspiration  the  cue.     Here  is  the  second  verse: 

I  know  an  English  village  O  so  small! 
Where  every  cottage  has  a  whitewashed  wall, 
And  every  garden  has  a  sweetbriar  hedge, 
And  there's  a  cat  on  every  window  ledge. 
And  there's  a  cottage  there  with  those  within  it 
Whom  I  in  fancy  visit  every  minute. 

0  little  village  mine,  so  far  away, 
How  would  I  love  to  visit  you  to-day! 

To  lift  the  latch  and  peep  within  the  door 
And  join  the  happy  company  once  more — 

1  think  I'd  try  and  catch  them  at  their  tea: 
What  a  surprise  for  every  one  'twould  be! 
How  we  would  talk  and  laugh,  maybe  and  cry, 
Living  our  lost  years  over,  they  and  I, 

And  then  at  dusk  I'd  seek  the  well-known  lane 
To  hear  the  English  nightingale  again. 

This  time  all  went  well.  At  "they  and  I"  the 
nightingale  broke  in  and  continued  until  the  con- 
cluding rounding-up  couplet: 

That's  the  old  country,  that's  the  old  home! 
You  never  can  beat  it  wherever  you  roam. 

So  much  for  Part  I.  The  Village.     It  was  the 
end  too  of  the  French  gentleman,  at  any  rate  for 
(186) 


In  a  New  Medium 

a  while,  and  he  went  off  to  wet  one  or  more  of 
his  many  whistles,  while  the  supernumeraries 
gathered  together  with  designs  on  city  illusion. 
One  (a  minute  Osborne  cadet,  who  appeared  mys- 
teriously from  nowhere)  carried  a  motor  horn; 
another,  a  fire  bell;  another,  a  policeman's  call; 
and  a  fourth,  a  wooden  rattle  which,  when  turned 
slowly,  made  a  series  of  cracks  resembling  shots 
in  a  rifle  saloon. 

All  being  ready,  we  froze  into  silence  and 
awaited  the  incarnadining  of  the  lamp.  Then  one 
of  the  musicians  struck  Big  Ben's  chimes  on  a 
series  of  metal  pipes,  the  orchestra  followed  with 
a  bar  or  so  of  "Sally  in  our  Alley,"  and  the  elocu- 
tionist plunged  into  Part  II.  The  Town: 

O  London,  once  my  home  but  now  so  far, 

You  shine  before  me  brighter  than  a  star! 

By  night  I  dream  of  you,  by  day  I  long 

To  be  the  humblest  even  of  your  throng: 

Happy,  however  poor,  however  sore, 

Merely  because  a  Londoner  once  more. 

Your  sights,  your  sounds,  your  scents — I  miss  them  all: 

Your  coloured  buses  racing  down  Whitehall; 

The  fruit  stalls  in  the  New  Cut  all  aflare; 

The  Oval  with  its  thousands  gathered  there; 

The  Thames  at  evening  in  a  mist  of  blue; 

Old  Drury  with  a  hundred  yards  of  queue. 

Your  sausage  shops,  your  roads  of  gleaming  mud, 

Your  pea-soup   fogs — they're  in  my  very  blood; 

And  there's  no  music  to  my  ear  so  sweet 

As  all  the  noisy  discord  of  the  street. 

At  these  words  the  reciter  stepped  aside  and 
conceded  the   funnel   to  bus   conductors   shouting 

(187) 


Cloud  and  Silver 

"Higher  up !"  policemen  ordering  people  to  move 
on,  newspaper  boys  with  "All  the  Winners !"  and 
costermongers  noisily  commending  fruit;  while  in 
the  background  the  Osborne  cadet  pinched  the 
motor  horn  without  mercy.  At  a  signal,  peace 
suddenly  was  restored,  and 

That's  my  dear  London,  that's  my  old  home, 
I'll  never  forget  it  wherever  I  roam, 

said  the  elocutionist. 

For  the  introductory  bars  of  the  second  verse 
I  had  wanted  "The  Old  Bull  and  Bush,"  but  copy- 
right difficulties  intervening,  we  had  to  fall  back 
upon  "There  is  a  tavern  in  the  town,"  with  which 
these  words  merged: 

And  ah!  the  London  pleasure  parties  too! — 
The  steamboat  up  to  Hampton  Court  or  Kew; 
The  walk  among  the  deer  in  Richmond  Park; 
The  journey  back,  all  jolly,  in  the  dark! 
To  Epping  Forest  up  the  Mile  End  Road, 
Passing  the  donkey  barrows'  merry  load; 
Or  nearer  home,  to  Hampstead  for  a  blow: 
To  watch  old  London  smouldering  below; 
Between   the   Spaniards  and  Jack  Straw's   to  pace 
And  feel  the  northern  breezes  in  one's  face; 
Then  at  the  Bull  and  Bush  perhaps  to  dine 
And  taste  again  their  famous  barley  wine! 
Ah  me!     I  wonder  is  it  all  the  same? 
Is  Easter  Monday  still  the  good  old  game? 
I  hear  it  yet,  though  years  have  rolled  away, 
The  maddening  medley  of  Bank  Holiday. 

Here   came  our  greatest  effect  at  realism.     The 
band    broke    into    a    typical     roundabout    waltz, 
(188) 


In  a  New  Medium 

through  which  rifles  snapped,  whistles  blew,  cocoa- 
nut-shy  men  exhorted  you  to  roll,  bowl,  or  pitch, 
and  a  showman  bellowed  forth  the  importance  of 
visiting  a  fat  lady.     And  with  the  words: 

That's  my  dear  London,  that's  my  true  home, 
I'll  never  forget  it  wherever  I  roam, 

the  record  was  complete. 

What  New  Zealand  and  Australia,  Johannes- 
burg and  the  Yukon  think  of  it,  I  have  yet  to 
learn.  Nor  has  the  butter  begun  to  blossom  on 
the  bread.     But  it  was  great  fun. 


THE    END 


(189) 


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